"Kiln People" by David Brin

[Sociotard]

I just finished it, and I thought it was pretty good.

 

The plot is just a standard private eye uncovering a tangled conspiracy that threatens all he holds dear. The main character is pretty vanilla but the supporting cast is very interesting.

 

The book spends a lot of time exploring how the world would be different if we could make clay golem copies of ourselves. Litterally, clay. Oh, it's infused with chemicals and enzymes for energy storage and a vague structure for thinking, but it's still just clay. They just lay out the clay manaquin and imprint it with your "soul standing wave" and zap! You now have a clay man to do whatever you want.

 

Yes, that's silly. I'm more forgiving of books that explore the effects of interesting technologies that are 'just around the corner'. That happens to be one of the origins of science fiction in general. But clay golems? That's a fantasy trope, not a up and coming field of science. Soul standing waves? I know there are always scientists trying to find the soul, but they generally get dismissed as crackpots.

 

Despite that, it was a pretty good book. Try it out.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: "Kiln People" by David Brin

 

I enjoyed it.

 

I've not read a David Brinn Novel I've disliked. Postman and Earth are favorites.

[Rage]

Re: "Kiln People" by David Brin

 

The synthetic clay idea could work if you're prepared to take clay to the extreme of what clay can be, so, it can still retain the veneer of plausibility. And even if it can't, just use it as a placeholder for technology N that is just around the corner that would do a similar thing.

 

Still, a very sweet book.