Imagine if you could make temporary copies of yourself. These copies could then be assigned to run errands or do research or just have novel experiences. And at the end of the day, you can reabsorb their memories into yourself.
This is the world of Kiln People by David Brin.
Albert Morris is a detective who makes extensive use of these self-copies. He mostly works smaller time cases, but one day he receives a request from Ritu Maharal. She is the daughter of Yosil Maharal, one of the pioneers of the copying technology.
Yosil Mararal has disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
Albert accepts the case. As you might guess, things aren’t exactly what they seem and Albert is drawn into a series of events that quickly spiral out of control.
Kiln People is a sprawling science fiction detective novel that runs 576 pages. It spends a good amount of that running time teasing out the potential implications of its central technology to the surrounding world and jumping around to the viewpoints of Albert’s various copies, showing events from his different perspectives.
The book is well written and the world building is unique and interesting. However, the point of view jumping can be a bit confusing to follow and the book begins to drag as it chugs along to its conclusion, which gets trippy and metaphysical in a way the book has only sort have been to that point.
Kiln People is recommended for readers that enjoy idea sci-fi, especially idea sci-fi that goes a long way toward teasing out how its ideas ripple through society, and detective mystery readers that aren’t intimidated by convoluted, sprawling plots.
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