Some 50 years from the present, our world has been transformed beyond belief by the introduction of just one radical new technology: the "dittoing" of people. Through the medium of living "clay"—peptide- and protein-laced "ceramic" cells infused with limited "elan" energies that allow a mere 24 hours of existence—all of Earth's 9 billion "archies" (the archetypical baseline humans) are able to duplicate themselves to their hearts' content (and so far as their pocketbooks will allow). These doppelgangers are imbued with the "Standing Wave" mentalities of their originators—in effect, a temporary human soul imprint. And a ditto's only hope of an "afterlife" is to upload his day's memories into his owner's neurons—should he survive his often hazardous assignments. More numerous by far than the real humans, these instant clones are second-class citizens, leading lives of dedicated service to their owners—not counting those dittos that go "frankie" and become rogues. Numerous laws and customs have sprung up to support this strange global lifestyle. But the whole socioeconomic structure is a precarious one, and secret new technological developments threaten to undermine the whole shebang.

Into this elaborate setup is plunged our hero—or heroes, counting his duplicates: Albert Morris, private investigator. When first encountered, Morris is hot on the trail of a villain named Beta, who makes an illicit living by creating counterfeits of proprietary dittos, such as the famous courtesan Gineen Wammaker, who has hired Morris to stop such thefts. In the opening scenes, Morris—and his loyal dittos—do succeed in foiling Beta's operations without actually capturing the man. But this seemingly straightforward criminal enterprise is actually a tarbaby of menace, with sticky extrusions leading to a network of conspiracies. On the day that Morris splits himself into four dittos—a greenie, two grays and an ebony, for the copies are color-coded to indicate function and to prevent masquerading as humans—he will find his various selves, natural and artificial, assaulted, captured, tortured, infected, threatened, seduced and killed. The billionaire owner of Universal Kilns, Aeneas Polom, his murdered partner, Dr. Yosil Maharal, and Maharal's adult daughter, Ritu, as well a handful of lesser figures, will all seek to move Morris around as a pawn in their plans.

As Morris and his dittos journey through a dozen different weird venues—ditto churches, ditto factories, high-tech battlefields, ditto nightclubs—the investigator gradually learns of his own unguessed value to the conspirators, discovers how a dead man may live on through his "ghosts" and exposes the surprising secret identity of Beta, before finally undergoing his own final transformation.

Wonders piled upon wonders

Fans of comics from the 1960s might very well recall a book titled T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, which featured a character named No Man. No Man, once a brilliant scientist, had transferred his consciousness to android form. Moreover, No Man kept dozens of android duplicates scattered around the world, and could transmit his consciousness at will from one to another. There was no greater thrill than watching No Man, trapped and perhaps at the point of death, mentally leap out of trouble into a newly wakened vessel. Well, I'm willing to bet David Brin loved No Man, too, for this slam-bang novel offers many of the same frissons as the 40-year-old comic, with, of course, a more solid scientific foundation and all the relevant extrapolations more deeply examined.

From its propulsive opening chapters, which detail the frenetic flight of one of Morris' dittos from Beta thugs intent on killing him, this book never stops in either its action or its examination of all the implications of its radical conceit. Brin continually introduces new aspects of his future culture, piling wonder upon wonder. Just when you think he's covered all the angles of "golemtech"—sex surrogates, SCA-style recreational use, dittos in non-human shapes and sizes—he introduces a twist or variation. And much of this is couched in convincing neologisms, which add to the cognitive dissonance. For instance, "sherds" is now an expletive, in line with the ceramic nature of the dittos. Moreover, in a neat technical feat, Brin manages to keep his split viewpoints untangled, thanks to clever chapter headings.

And of course, given Brin's track record, he does not make his book strictly a one-dimensional affair based on a single technology. Everything else about his mid-21st century has also been updated. Privacy and surveillance issues, ecological issues and, most importantly, issues involving the basis of consciousness are all delved into.

Stylistically and thematically, Brin owes a debt to several important predecessors. Algis Budrys' Rogue Moon (1960), with its matter transmitter that duplicates the protagonist over and over, is an important landmark, as is Damon Knight's A for Anything (1959). John Varley's Nine Worlds tales, with their reliance on old-fashioned cloning for serial identity transfer, also figure. But, surprisingly, the most dominant influence to my ears is A.E. van Vogt. Kiln People has the same crazed oneiric intensity and recomplicated plotting, the throwaway mortality and "poor superman" empathy that marked the best of van Vogt's work. It's refreshing to see someone taking up the neglected mantle of this Golden Ager.