Christopher McKitterick's Reviews > Kiln People

KILN PEOPLE is the most fun I had reading a book in a long while, and highly inventive (despite what a few scholars have said - jealousy, I suspect). It's big, and it gets a bit long in the 3rd quarter of the book, but it's really worth the read. I love Brin's fresh look at the definition of "soul" and his toying with transcendence. All in a funny, suspenseful, intriguing page-turner. Great SF!

I went into KILN PEOPLE with a bit of hesitation, expecting yet another take
on cloning or golems, and ended up getting really sucked into the story. I think Brin does fabulous things with world-building and 3rd-tier extrapolations from the technologies in the book, and I constantly found myself asking the next question... which Brin then answered in ways I hadn't anticipated. Some of the characters are just wonderful, especially the "Frankie" hero-figure, and I appreciate how Brin took a completely... well, Brinish approach to the idea of "soul" (and, indeed, "soulistics"), having real fun with it - and sharing that fun with the reader along the way while transcending the SF detective genre, among other things.

The primary flaw is its length, and I don't so much fault Brin for this as I do his editor - 50 pages could easily have been trimmed, because much of it is repetitive or over-expository, and TOR should have chopped it. Even so, I'm more impressed by this book than by most anything I've read in a long while, and in fact the light tone serves the content well, much better than a serious tone would have.

Highly recommended.