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Kiln People
But after a brief prelude (reminiscent of the introductory scene of Indiana Jones), on the first full day of Kiln People Morris and his dittos are pulled by players in a great game seeking to use him to their own ends. He is hired by Ritu Maharal when her father Yosil Maharal dies in an unexpected and rare car accident. Yosil Maharal and his partner Vic Kaolin founded the corporate giant UK (Universal Kilns) after pioneering soulistics and inventing dittotech years earlier; changing the world forever.
We are introduced to a cast of characters through the first person narration of Albert and his dittos, each of whom, like the blind men touching an elephant in the Indian fable, sees a different picture of events. Albert is the heart of the book, and we understand his motivations and how his physical manifestation, as ditto or person, affects his outlook, attitude, and actions. However, the motivations of other characters including Yosil Maharal, his partner Vic Kaolin, his daughter Ritu, and Albert's mysterious nemesis the dittotech pirate Beta remain cloaked -- disappointingly so as the book closes with some, but not all, of our questions probably, but not certainly, answered in speculative form.
Kiln People is a bit long. Through the first half, as Albert and his ditto selves picked up the trails of their inevitably converging cases, the shadowy figures of Vic Kaolin and Yosil Maharal were mixed in with a cast of other minor characters including Pal, Carla, Gineen Wammaker, the Maestra, and Queen Irene. I had to flip back at least once to recall which one was actually supposed to be dead!
There's a lot of action here. The book features bar fights, urban gun battles, guerrilla surveillance insertions, sabotage, and plenty of danger for the characters. (It could make a good movie with the right script and director). But the characters involved in many of these harrowing situations are themselves dittos, and like the citizens of the Kiln People world, I became desensitized to violence against all dittos, and disinterested in the plight of the characters.
Through the second half, perhaps because of previous experience reading David Brin's previous book Earth, certain future events became rather apparent, and I did find myself eventually wading through the last 100 pages or so just so that I could get through to the foreseeable climax.
That said, Kiln People tied neatly some nagging mysteries as it closed. The book gives a realistic portrayal of a world which had integrated the disruptive technology of ditto tech, and it succeeded in presenting some interesting scientific and speculative material too.
This book shared many themes with David Brin's previous book Earth including the attempted/accidental creation of a deity, people seeking to be Godlike, the threat of mass human destruction, a lone mad genius, and the unity of all humanity within a greater entity. Also, this world, like the world of Earth featured the end of secrecy the dangers of technology, and a semi-libertarian legal system ( Called "the Big Deregulation" here). However, the setting, story and ideas of Kiln People, while reminiscent of Earth, are substantially independent.
If you enjoyed Earth, you will probably also enjoy Kiln People as I did. It's a fair story wrapping interesting ideas in a realistic but fantastic setting. However, it can be a bit long and obtuse.
You can purchase Kiln People from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
While this book report was well-written, and the handwriting is flawless, I was looking for more discussion of the book's themes and the author's use of literary techniques such as metaphor and simile. The plot summary should be very limited. Rewrite for a B+.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
The review never actually explains it... there's another review out there which does, fortunately.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
Damn! Would have been fp if I didn't get into an argument with my ditto.
S
Its not unusual to see such themes as open information in his books. David Brin is active on the NPR front promoting one of the few alternate plans that attempts to stop INS detentions *and* terrorist activity in one fell swoop.
His essay "The Transparent Society" calls for open information that can be used in social policing and accountability. Much of what he models this on came from observing news groups and other (i think he calls them) militant internet movements. Linux itself is one of those movements he mentioned.
If he did use the word militant, it was more a commantary on the way these groups police themselves, and how they band together to wage information war against those they don't like. In Slashdot's case that would be the RIAA, MPAA. For Linux, it would be whatever would try to keep us from hacking our own kernel.
Whats interesting about this is its Orwellian overtones, but lack of a centralized big brother. Anyway, as far as idelogues go I probably like Brin more then say Chomsky or Kato, although they have their simularities.
_________________________
OnRoad:Hacking that which costs more and is more deadly.
I thought this was a Brett Favre biography.
Karma: Excer..ex...excellahhh...realll good (mostly affected by drinking not done in moderation)
If they are androids, that's far more likely. I fully expect that in the far future people will be able to willfully control constructed apparatus at a level of sophistication that makes them essentially a double for the original person.
I had read "Earth" and thought it was really good. I'll have to go read "Kiln People" now.
This is not his best work, it's almost as though he took a bet to write this one.
The discussion of the soul space did bring up some interesting ideas and ways to look at souls and the concept of religion.
Over all a decent read though certainly not his best stuff.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Didn't Michael Keaton star in a movie about this already?
sounds like my every day life. try living in Columbia sometime.
If you want it amazon.com has it cheaper
I've been trying to read this lately, mostly over lunch. Big mistake. There are ditto bodies melting all over the place. It's one of the most violent things I've read in a long time. Yuck.
And here's the thing: I disagree with a fundamental premise of the book. Brin's constructed a world where you send your ditto (copy) out to do things for you. It lives a very short time (24 hours or whatever). You can pull its memories back into your "real" self, if it physically survives. The dittos are treated really badly; shot at, spat on, you name it, because they're disposable.
But if these memories are coming back to the real people, why would dittos be treated so badly? Some kind of "net good" effect would happen, I'd think...where people would do unto others etc...
Upshot? Nasty, violent society that isn't much fun to read about, so far.
Imagine a beowolf cluster of ditto people!
The reviewer keeps referring to "Earth" as Brin's "previous book." "Earth" was written in 1991. If you've read nothing of Brin since 1991 then you haven't read too much Brin.
If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.
Killin' People
Liberty uber alles.
Bitch, go to the kitchen and make me some pie!!!
I thought this was a book about rednecks!
:)
Kiln, MS - Hometown of Green Bay QB Brett Favre
This isn't troll/flamebait - I come from the area, so I have the right to say that.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
Rossalina loves to plagiarise
I read this book a while ago and rate it as one of the best books I've read in a long time. It's got intesting ideas, the characters are likeable (even if 4 of the characters are really the same person) and it's written in a style which makes it really easy to read. I have to admit that the last 25% of the book doesn't quite match up to the promise shown by the start but as a good fun read it's an excellent book. I'd like to read more books set in the same work and hope he's working on some more!
Sig is taking a break!
If you like this book, you might check out some really good 40s and 50s detective books about a detective named Nero Wolfe who never leaves his house. Excellent books.
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When a friend of mine said he was going to loan me a book by this name (about a year ago), I replied "Killin' People? Sounds like a great book!" When he told me what it was reallly about, I never bothered to read it.
What do you mean they cut the power? How can they cut the power, man? They're animals!
- If you enjoyed Earth, you will probably also enjoy Kiln People as I did. It's a fair story wrapping interesting ideas in a realistic but fantastic setting. However, it can be a bit long and obtuse.
I really enjoyed the Kiln People, mainly because the plot was very original (as far as I knowThat said, I read Kiln People after reading Earth (David Brin was kind enough to give me an autographed copy when I visited his house), and reading Earth was an even better experience. I would recommend most of Brin's books (although I never finished either the book of movie of the Postman).
-Mark
I read this book a year ago! What gives? I mean, I enjoyed it and all, but it seems to be a little late for doing reviews. What's next, a Fellowship of the Ring review?
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
" Instead, each day he rises and imprints specialized dittos to do his legwork, review the evidence, meet others, and run errands while he stays home, tends his garden..."
This sounds pretty much how TV detective Nero Wolfe worked. And wasn't that much what "Jake and the Fatman" was all about ?`
"and keeps his real body in good physical condition."
Except for that part.
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
...David Brin was kind enough to give me an autographed copy when I visited his house
That and a restraining order?
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Hasn't Brin lifted the idea of people making short-lived copies of themselves from the Toons in Who Censored Roger Rabbit? (WCRR) by Gary Wolfe?
In that book, the cartoon actors could spawn doppelgangers to act as stunt doubles.
I haven't read Brin's book (although it sounds interesting), and I think it very unlikely that he's lifted more than that idea (WCRR features lethal assaults with custard pies for instance:).
And yes, AFAIK, WCRR was the basis for the Who Framed Roger Rabbit film
Yeah.. I really enjoyed Kiln People. But then I got sent to prison..
slashdot!=valid HTML
Learn how to spell, you fucking idiot.
... I forgot: you used to take the short bus to school, and had the teacher wipe the drool from your mouth and adjust your hockey helmet.
Oh wait
Never mind.
They're defnitely not Happy Fun books, but what hard-boiled PI story ever is?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Never leaves his house??
I believe he leaves the house in his very first book ("Fer De Lance") and he and Archie end up going to Montenegro (that's in Yugoslavia, don'cha know) in "The Black Mountain".
My father is a blogger.
I loved the first two hundred pages of this book. After that, it got incredibly boring. This book is roughly three times longer than it needs to be. I never finished it.
Find free books.
Actually, Nero Wolfe leaves his home quite often.
And since this is Slashdot, we may as well mention the cancellation of the Nero Wolfe TV series and the (assuredly doomed) efforts to save it.
Having read Kiln People a while back, I'd say Nero Wolfe would have loved the technology... no more arguing with Archie!
I like how Brin names one of the characters "Vic Kaolin". Kaolin is a type of very fine clay, only found in Georgia (US, not Russia) used to make china. :)
I won't dance in a club like this...All the girls are slags, and the beer tastes just like piss! -The Specials
Redundant Array of Inexpensive People
:-D
Real memory storage with backup.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
I wonder if it'd be more or less interesting if each copy could transceive its experiences in real time remotely to the 'original', this would be particularly useful to a PI..
Also, by the time you're able to ditto a person, surely you can also alter their time perception? Could be handy for stuff like long-distance space travel, but only if you could put the personality matrix in silicon.. But even a slight time perception change would give you more "time" to think about something..
One of the few sci-fi books in the last few decades to do the old trick of imagining a radical technology and working through the social consequences. The detective diction is a bit hokey, and has been done better in sci-fi - for instance by Jonathan Lethem in Gun, with Occassional Music - but the working out of a radical technological premise hasn't been.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Currently, IP is often a criminal matter, and we tie up police and attorneys general with it. In Brin's world, IP claims get enforced through private investigation (not necessarily by the IP owner), civil actions and (possibly stiff) financial penalties. The whole system pays for itself. The same technique can also be applied to computer hacking: private enforcement and civil action, as opposed to the criminal approach we take today.
In terms of privacy, in Brin's world, there is a huge number of networked webcams and people trade in their content. As far as I can tell, that would even be legal today. And using such information, you can reconstruct what people are doing, where they are going, who they are meeting with. That pretty much seems inevitable.
Furthermore, most information that is exchanged between people in a non-personal way is public: business agreements, inventions, contracts, etc. (Presumably, your pillow talk and recorded personal journal would remain private, at least until your death.) You have the option of buying secrecy for a limited term, but you must put the information in escrow with a company that ensures that the information does become public after the agreed term. I think this is what we should do for computer software source code, trade secrets, tax returns, and a lot of other information.
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/8/4/131935/4402
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
The beginning of the book is neat. It has mystery, it's fairly funny, the futurism is cool and well (not perfectly, but well) thought out.
The ending of the book, like the ending of Earth (and of the last uplift books, and everything else David Brin has ever written) is pointless mysto-magical claptrap. Once the book starts to wind down it becomes dreadfully predictable.
So, the first half, which the reviewer didn't much care for, is a fine, fun mystery/futuristic novel with an unusual hook (story told from multiple viewpoints which are really one person) which is skillfully used to tell a complex story.
The last 100 pages are something of a letdown, they're predictable and they drag on endlessly.
My advice: read the book until the mystery is solved, and then skip to the last twenty pages for the conclusion.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
I mean come on:
Kil'n People
I was expecting an O.J. autobiography and all I got was derivative science-fiction.
In the U.K, the paperback version actually is titled "Kil'n People." I've asked David if the title was a deliberate pun, since so many dittos die, but he doesn't seem to want to say if it was or not (which also leaves me wondering if I gave him the idea in the first place). Nobody so far has mentioned the incredible number of puns in the novel, which come increasingly frequently through the end. David did admit that he held back some of the worst puns he imagined.
Nick
Such insight occasionally leads to honest-to-goodness (accurate) predictions of social change, such as the description of the proto-WWW in Earth. I would agree that Brin tends to lapse into a sort of cosmic-mystic dogma to tie up loose ends, but that's typical sf.
Every author tries to achieve something profound, whether it's the elegant simplicity of a simple premise explained or a space station blowing up.
A Ditto is a short term copy of a person. A person will get into a special machine which scans the person, both a physical scan and a detailed mental scan, and uses that information to mold a piece of "clay" into a copy of the person.
I forget exactly where they get the clay from, i believe it is at least in part actual clay with special properties that's dug up in limited areas, but i may be mistaken, but there is certainly other stuff mixed in with it.
There are different qualities of clay you can get, which result in different qualities of dittos. (It may also relate to the type of scanning method used.) Some people will create several dittos of different types depending on what they need to get done during the day.
The Dittos can be colored like a real person, but that goes against the prevailign etiquette. Instead the dittos are color coded to indicate which kind they are, so menials will be solid Red, the highest quality will be Gold, etc.
Most dittos last for about 24 hours, maybe a little longer. If they return home within that time, they and the original can get back into the machine, the ditto will be scanned, and the memories imprinted on the brain of the original.
This is half the method of "controlling," the dittos. Since they have all the knowledge of the original, they obviously know they are going to expire in about a day, so the only way they have of leaving a lasting legacy is to get back home and reimprint. Of course a lot of originals will refuse to do the reimprinting if they suspect the ditto has had a crappy day. The other half is that for all effective purposes the ditto is the same as the original, and having knowingly submitted to the process, the unlucky "self" who ends up as the ditto doesn't usually feel like screwing it's collective self over by not accomplishing it's tasks.
And of course as with any process, there are ocassionaly defects. In this case it leads to "Frankensteins" whose personalities were not copied perfectly and diverge from the original. The results can vary from a ditto that wants to slack off and live what little life it has left (Frankensteins are almost never copied back, and in fact there may be difficulties in doing so) without following it's original goal, to totally psychotic dittos who might go on a rampage.
As for the book itself, i thought it was really good. The ending does tend towards the techno-mystical, but that's not really something i minded. If you were bothered by the end of "Earth" it might bug you though.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
President-Vice Richard B. Cheney's ditto is none other than the Bungler-In-Chief
fit Nero Wolfe?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Now, I know I'm not the only one who read that as kil'n people and rapidly openned it to find out where I could get my automatic weapon too.
Actually, he seems to leave it in nearly every book I agree. The black mountain was by far the most amazing time he left. (though he tried to join the army in "not quite dead enough".
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Blade Runner, but less philosophical and with more action. Phillip K. Dick goes to Hollywood!
--sdem
Made out of clay, lives to carry out instructions, etc. Are there any other Jewish mythology references in the book?
-Mark
All I know is this...
If I were a ditto, only going to live 24 hours, I sure as fuck wouldn't want to go to work for 8 or more of those hours. I don't care if my schmuck primary created me for that purpose. In fact - being the primary, since the dittos think like me, I know they'd just play truant.
I'd be more likely to go to work and send my dittos out on holiday. I know myself well enough to know that only the threat of my future existance being uncomfortable keeps me in a 9-5 job when there are more fun alternatives.
I really don't see dittos wanting to go to work for their primaries (or whatever they're called). Especially with the possiblity that the ditto won't get uploaded at the end of the day.
Ah well. It's an interesting concept, and I think I'll read it for myself.
When I read William Gibson's "Virtual Light", I was very disappointed. Gibson was trying to write Stephenson's "Snow Crash", but was unable to do it justice.
I consider David Brin to be one of my favourite authors, so I was excited to pick up a copy of "Kiln People". Unfortunately, I was drawn to the conclusion the David Brin was also trying to write "Snow Crash", albeit in his own way.
Neither Gibson nor Brin quite did "Snow Crash" justice. However, in Brin's case, he wrote a book worth reading. It's a far shot away from being his best work, but if you're a Brin fan, reading it can't hurt.
That said, I wish Brin would explain the evidently self-uplifted origin of humanity and tell us more about the Progenitors!
Could the presentation box of the books mention the date of publication? Even if such a piece of information is not hard to get by, I think it would be really helpful. For example, the recently reviewed Effective Java is actually a book published in 2001.
Xavier
Do I make sense? Please report if not.