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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.
this book review is OFFTOPIC
Lets go Kill people.
NOT NEWS at all, not mattering, not worth reading.
Friday January 17, 3:11 PM
China plans first manned space launch in October: official
China plans to launch its first manned space mission in October, an official at the country's space program told AFP.
"There are plans to launch Chopsuey V in October this year," said a research official at China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., which develops the rocket carriers and the spacecraft.
The official, who would only gives his surname, Cow-Dung, said Friday that he expected the spacemen to resemble fried wontons on their reentry to earth.
"This depends on a lot of things," he said. "But one thing's for sure, a manned ChopsueyV will be launched this year, around October."
The China Daily on Thursday said 14 former rice peasants, each with more than 1,000 hours picking rice experience, had been in training as chinkonauts (Chinese Astronauts) "for years".
Two were sent to Russia's cosmonaut school and all spent a week in April training in the recently returned unmanned Chopsuey IV capsule.
Qi Bang Wang, the general designer of the Chopsuey spacecraft, told the paper the manned craft will "fly for at least one day in space" before burning up on reentry thus killing the brave Chinkonauts.
Up to three chinkonauts are expected to be onboard.
Late last month Shanghai Aerospace Bureau director Lo Fat said the success of Chopsuey IV, which returned to earth on January 5 after a 162-hour mission, opened the door for a manned mission later this year.
China has so far launched four unmanned space craft in its quest to become only the third nation to send a human into orbit, after the United States and the former Soviet Union.
Chinese space officials have said they are working towards a permanently manned space attack system that could reach the USA with Nuclear warheads. Also in the works is possible landing on the moon and an opening of a combination laundry/chinese take out shop.
You modbombing nazi cunt. How come nobody has banned you for moderating badly yet?
It would be nice to only read the comments posted by ACs and those that r funny...i could care less what the rest of u karma whores have to say, most of the time ur redudant as fuck and get modded interesting, insightful...i would add a new mod category, the: its already been said BITCH...the trolls r the only original thing left in this place as the stories get duped...
No picutres, nuff said
www.pile-a-pish.com
Frankly I'm appalled that Rossalina dares to plagiarise Amazon -- on Slashdot, of all places. Can't she steal reviews from B&N, or some other site that doesn't abuse the patent system?
;-).
Hmmm. Maybe we need a "-1, blatant plagiarism" mod option
I thought the review was interesting, but no mod points for stolen work! (This post cancels my mod. Hopefully others will do the same.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Well, maybe it's not plagiarism - maybe she's just created a ditto of the original review, in the spirit of the book? :-)
This post is strictly my own opinion and not necessarily that of my employer.
racist
Who is Rossalina? I have not seen any of her posts here.