Kiln People
by Davin Brin
TOR, New York, 2002
460 pages in hardcover


There are strange sects that base their theologies --- even their members' lives --- on science fiction fantasies. The folks who write good science fiction tend to be far advanced beyond these groups.

For example, those who believe in the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Mothership and the evil mad scientist Yacub are, under the right circumstances, good for an entertaining argument about whether white people have souls. In his "Kiln People," award-winning science fiction author David Brin leaves those sorts of banalities in the dust. His book poses the question of whether green golems have souls.

Lately another weird cult made headlines with its claim of human cloning, forthright assault on the very notion of scientific and medical ethics, and bizarre assertion of immortality by way of loser parents cloning themselves and trying to extend their pathetic lives by imposing on their genetically engineered kids. There's no serious thought about the social consequences of using human cloning technology in that circle. David Brin, on the other hand, while venturing along many fronts of scientific, cultural and philosophical inquiry, makes the social consequences of technological applications one of the central themes of Kiln People.

But don't for a second think that Kiln People is a dry philosophical text or a turgid Luddite tome. No way.

This book is a hardboiled detective's tale. This particular gumshoe, however, works at a time when people can make temporary clay copies of themselves, send them out to do the boring or dangerous things in life, then download the experiences of their throwaway alternates.

Think about the first economic opportunities likely to arise from such a technology. If it's like the Internet, it will be something akin to pornography --- vicarious but very real sexual and violent experiences in which only animated but feeling dummies risk being hurt. Then think about what it does to organized labor when all the factory jobs are done by temps baked in kilns and imprinted with the skills of real human beings. And consider how a private eye's job would be changed.

Brin does this and more with rare brilliance, turning out a novel that will surely be counted among science fiction's classics.

And what would a detective in such a society investigate? The sorts of things they look into now, of course --- copyright piracy and auto accident deaths suspected to be wrongful, to name two --- but this time detective Albert Morris and his dittos find themselves drawn onto the trail of a mad scientist. Not one of those boring mad scientists who wants to CONQUER the world or predict next month's lottery result, but one of the cool, nihilistic kind, the sort of guy who would prefer to DESTROY the world, making the upcoming Gordito pretty much irrelevant.

Along the way, Brin goes through interesting puns and chapter titles that would do Rocky and Bullwinkle proud, and an amazing spectrum of cultural references, from the Firesign Theater to Fay Wray, from the Beatles to Baron Frankenstein, from shamanism to Shakespeare, from Bill Gates to Gumby. It makes for a dense, multi-layered novel, but never a dull or slow-moving one.

Please don't try to model your life --- let alone your kid's life or, God forbid, your clone's life --- after this novel. But if you are a science fiction reader, you really should get ahold of this book.