A review by joelevard
Kiln People by David Brin

2.0

I like sci-fi, but man, a lot of these dudes are long-winded (and how do they manage to write so freaking many books regardless? Fantasy authors too especially). I picked this one up because it was lauded and I loved the concept: a future society where people sit on their asses on the couch and send out disposable one-use-only clones (made out of clay and color-coded based on brain power and durability, from dumb-as-Gumby Greens to sleek, efficient Ebonies) to do the stuff they don't want to do: go to work, run errands, walk the dog. Then the clones, already starting to break down, come home and upload their memories to the main user and voila! A whole day's work AND you got to watch The View.

Though there are some nifty ideas at work (what if the clone decides he doesn't want to run your errands? what would a religion that catered to creations that live only a day look like?), they aren't nearly interesting enough to support a 600-page book, at least when they've been wrapped in a smartass whodunnit with too many shifting points-of-view (which are technically the same point-of-view since the clones all have identical memories to begin with, argh).

I read about a third of it, didn't care enough to find out what was going to happen. Who knows, maybe it got really cool at the end. Still probably wasn't as cool as this.