Kiln People

By: David Brin

Narrated by: Andy Caploe

In a perilous future where disposable duplicate bodies fulfill every legal and illicit whim of their decadent masters, life is cheap. No one knows that better than Albert Morris, a brash investigator with a knack for trouble, who has sent his own duplicates into deadly peril more times than he cares to remember. But when Morris takes on a ring of bootleggers making illegal copies of a famous actress, he stumbles upon a secret so explosive it has incited open warfare on the streets of Dittotown.

Dr. Yosil Maharal, a brilliant researcher in artificial intelligence, has suddenly vanished, just as he is on the verge of a revolutionary scientific breakthrough. Maharal's daughter, Ritu, believes he has been kidnapped - or worse. Aeneas Polom, a reclusive trillionaire who appears in public only through his high-priced platinum duplicates, offers Morris unlimited resources to locate Maharal before his awesome discovery falls into the wrong hands.To uncover the truth, Morris must enter a shadowy nightmare world of ghosts and golems where nothing -and no one - is what they seem, memory itself is suspect, and the line between life and death may no longer exist.

Kiln People is a 2003 Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel.

©2002 David Brin (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Neat world building; plot slow and simplistic

I love the premise of the book, and how the world building creates all sorts of different moral dilemmas, not a simple preachy conclusion. However, the plot is a very simplistic detective novel plot that is utterly predictable and slow in pacing.

Fascinating premise

I began this book years ago, but finally got to finish it pretty recently. Even when I started, the premise of the story interested me. I am sorry to say toward the end, the story weakened - mostly due to a rather cliched antagonist. I'm glad I finished it, but don't know that I'd recommend it to others - at least not highly.

ok

He created a fascinating world, but the actual story isn't engaging enough. I finished it, but was never engaged, never had any trouble putting it down.

Great premise lack luster execution

I thought the story line was great. A “clones meets detective” mash up. Turns out it was difficult to keep the characters separated and the multiple story lines. Disappointing that it did not deliver.

Excellent book, good reader. FANTASTIC concept.

I only read this book once, but I really enjoyed the audiobook version. The reader had good voice separation between characters, and didn't make the female characters sound like a whispering truck driver.

The only thing you might want to do for optimum enjoyment is consider running the playback at 1.25x speed. I started it at 1x and increased it within 10 minutes -- the default speed just seems to drag. At 1.25x, I found it just about perfect.

Maybe it was me

I really loved Brin’s old stuff. I saw this and grabbed it figuring it would be more of the old David Brin. It is not. I had a hard time with this. Maybe it’s me and the way I listen to books. This book seems to need you to pay careful attention to it. It is not light reading. It got kind of convoluted. the only reason I actually finished it was to find out where it was going. Once I got there, I didn’t really care. I also tried to read something out of the genre that I am currently enjoying and maybe that is part of it too.

great book. awesome narrator.

Excellent narration.
Great scifi concept and lots of funny bits. the narrator is amazing. maybe the best/ot best suited performance.

Futuristic multitasking

David Brin's Kiln People offers a unique future where individuals can make golems of themselves to perform specific tasks based on their 'colors' (green performs routine household chores, while ivory does more analytic tasks, and grey handles dealing with people). The 'standing wave' unique to each individuals allows the golem to function as their authentic 'rig' (original') and the golem has a lifetime of only 24 hours, they can upload their memories back to the rig. The plot revolves around a private detective investigating the case of a presumed accidental death of a famous scientist responsible for golems, but whose daughter suspects foul play. The detective produces multiple golems that go missing, each pursuing or getting mixed up in various aspects of a much more complicated sinister plan (classical mad scientist).

Brin offers a novel concept that combines both science and spirituality into an eminently plausible plot given his underlying universe. At the same time, he addresses the likely divergence of public opinion with religious fanatics against the whole concepts and others wanting more freedoms for golems as well as various implementations of the golem technology. There are numerous plot twists that keeps the story fresh and engaging.

The narration is excellent with good character distinction even among the various golems which is necessary to keep everyone straight. While of moderate length, the pace is brisk, making for a quick listen.

Started strong

The narrator was excellent, but it seems to be recorded in slow motion, I played back at 110% and it was fine. the story started off very strong and enjoyable, but then got way too metaphysical and lost it's momentum. still was very enjoyable though.

Great concept

well...It's an interesting world that's being presented. I'd say its even a compelling story, but good God get on with it. The agonizing level of details will put you to sleep. The narrative drags on with multiple internal monologs examining events from multiple perspectives and its super repetitive. The climax takes 5, I repeat 5! hours! This book could have been half the length and still told the story colorfully in my opinion. The narrator and production is great. I don't hate the book, but its definitely not my favorite.