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Brin, David. Kiln People. New York: Tor, 2002. ISBN # 0-765-30355-8. 460 pages. cloth $25.95. Reviewed by Bill Dynes |
Brin, David. Kiln
People. New York: Tor, 2002. ISBN # 0-765-30355-8. 460
pages. cloth $25.95. Reviewed by Bill
Dynes
There is a natural affinity between science fiction and the noir whodunit, and David Brin's Kiln People does an entertaining job of exploiting the points of contact between the two. The novel sets a detective story in a near-future when the human consciousness can be copied into a clay golem with a 24-hour life span. At the end of that day, the golem, or "ditto," feels compelled to return to its original to download its experiences before its messy dissolution. Our hero, Albert Morris, is hot on the trail of Beta, who specializes in pirated celebrity clones, when he is pulled into a mystery that begins as a missing person, becomes a murder, and ultimately transforms into a complicated web of corporate greed and scientific megalomania. While less compelling than some of his other novels, Brin delivers an interesting and enjoyable tale, and his central narrative innovation, the me-for-a-day golems, is fascinating and original.
Larry Niven has written that "detective and science fiction … have a lot in common," especially "readers who like a challenge, a puzzle" (Niven, Afterword, Flatlander, New York: Del Rey, 1995. 355). The puzzles of this novel aren't terribly challenging, and the progress of Morris' case is largely predictable. The most interesting questions here aren't "who?" or even "why?" but "how?" Those questions do get answered along the way, and the climax of the novel is satisfyingly grand.
Niven also suggests that "much detective fiction is also sociological fiction … as is much science fiction" (355), and in his speculations about a society transformed by the readily accessible technology of the golems Brin succeeds … and falls a bit short. I was intrigued by the brief glimpses we get of the world created by this new technology, though I wasn't always convinced. Brin hints at the social upheavals that came about as dittoes flooded the world's labor markets, and the investigations of Morris and his copies do take us into some of the strange new worlds of vice and opportunity that have opened up. But for the most part the flavor of Brin's world is familiar, and given the radical world-building Brin has offered in novels such as his Uplift War series, I assume this familiarity is intentional.
Juxtaposed with this motif of radically multiplied consciousness is Brin's depiction of a sprawling and invasive internet, linked to countless spycams maintained by both professional and amateur voyeurs. Brin has speculated about the fears and the possibilities of this kind of ubiquitous observation in his non-fiction Transparent Society, and it is interesting to see some of these ideas explored here. Certainly the access to all-seeing cameras sharply transforms the necessary leg-work of the detective. Tailing a suspect now becomes something one can do from home, especially when one has a creative AI and some technically-savvy dittos to help out. The real challenges begin when one wants to hide from the cameras.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the golems is their effect upon the narrative itself. In his acknowledgements, Brin admits that the different points of view demanded by his choice to use a narrator who divides himself into at least four separate parts over the course of the novel was challenging. Morris tells his story in first-person, as do several of the dittos he creates. Different color dittoes have different attributes and abilities &endash; send a cheap green to do the day's dirty work, invest a bit more for a gray to handle the more complicated jobs. Each golem begins its life with a full complement of memory from its creator -- the archetype -- but of course the events of the day leave their impression upon the ditto's consciousness. Brin has some fun with the subtle effects that this process has upon his characters' narration; language, like the individual stories themselves, begin identically then branch off to reflect the different experiences of each. Most intriguing is the green who finds himself becoming a "Frankie," a Frankenstein's creature beginning to develop his own sense of identity and self. It is disappointing that the limitations of the novel don't allow Brin to explore the implications of this multiplicity as fully as he might, although the dittoes and Morris himself do have occasion for some interesting speculations on the relationship between identity and experience. That the golems are all aware of the nature of their existence, including its short term, lends a certain poignancy to their speculations.
If Brin has chosen not to exploit all of the social and narrative ramifications of his human dittoes, he has concentrated instead on a well-paced, engaging, and often humorous experience. Albert Morris fits quite well into the tradition of SF detectives such as Asimov's Elijah Baily and Niven's Gil Hamilton, delivering an adventure that intrigues as it entertains.
