La historia narra las peripecias de un detective en un futuro no muy lejano, en una sociedad totalmente transformada por una nueva tecnología, la golemtecnología. Es posible en este futuro “imprimir” o imprintar copias de cerámica de uno mismo (llamados golems o ídems), que pueden dedicarse a hacer las tareas que se les encomienden, mientras el yo real, el de carne, se dedica a lo que le plazca. Hay copias de varios precios y calidades. los verdes baratos, aptos para limpiar el baño y cortar el césped (y algo más, pero no adelantaremos nada), los grises sobrios de alta calidad, los ébano cerebrales… Las copias viven un día, al final del cual pueden descargar los recuerdos en su original. Es posible de esta manera vivir varias vidas a la vez. El autor dedica bastante rato a explicar Y explicar muy bien) qué cambios produciría una tecnología así en la sociedad. Nos cuenta qué ocurre con los grupos fundamentalistas, con las leyes para golems, con el día a día de la gente, con las nuevas perversiones y diversiones que ofrece una sociedad así…

Nuestro detective, Albert Morris, especialista en violaciones de copyright (tranquilos, no es de la $GA€), se ve involucrado en un caso que será más grande de lo que había imaginado al principio. Bueno, en realidad se ve involucrado en tres casos simultáneamente, por lo que tiene a tres ídems trabajando en paralelo. Cada pista le(s) conducirá a algo mayor, hasta que llegamos a descubrir el vasto paisaje de lo que se oculta tras las levedades que investigaban los idAlberts al principio. El tratamiento formal de un ídem es añadirle un id al principio, por lo que los golems de nuestro protagonista son siempre llamados idAlbert o idMorris. Al prota humano se le lama todo el rato realAlbert. Está en todo, el autor.

La novela es estupenda. Es un relato de detectives que parodia en ocasiones a los relatos de detectives. En un punto de la novela el protagonista reflexiona sobre por qué no ha llamado a la policía, y se dice que todas las pelis de misterio o terror dejarían de exisitir si los protagonistas hicieran lo que deben hacer desde el principio: llamar a la poli. Pero él tampoco llama . El ritmo está bien llevado, con la posible excepción del final (qué difícil es hacer un buen final de novela), en la que se suceden una tras otra bastantes explicaciones de física cuántica (ondas de probabilidad resonantes, estados entrelazados, interferencia entre funciones de estado) mezcladas con conceptos de psicología que hacen un batiburrillo difícilmente comprensible. Pero cuando acaban esas explicaciones, la novela se propulsa de nuevo hacia su grand finale.

Hay alguna referencia clara al Mundo feliz de Huxley, como cuando habla de los trabajadores baratos, que ni sienten ni piensan, llamados epsilones (igual que en la novela de Huxley), y alguna otra referencia humorística que me arrancó una sonrisa:

Una cosa es ver la muerte venir a manos de tu creación. Eso forma parte de la tradición épica humana, después de todo. Edipo y su padre. El barón Frankenstein y su monstruo. William Henry Gates y Windows ’09…

Me ha encantado. Ciencia ficción de la buena. Mi nota: Muy, muy buena.

Have you ever woke up in the morning, and wished someone else would go to work for you? In this book someone does. People make copies of themselves, and send them out to do the things they don’t want to do. They have specialized colors for different things that determine the copy’s (dittos) function. Once they have spent their day doing their originals chores, they go home so the original can inload the memories. The story surrounds a PI, Morris. He is after a renowned criminal, when he is hired by Ritu, the daughter of one of the partners that came up with the ditto technology, to find her father.

The story is told through Morris’s eyes and his dittos. Through their eyes the reader discovers a very odd world. People have become addicted to experiences that they could never preform in their own bodies. Plots and stories of every kind are reenacted, and then inloaded. The most interesting is that Morris’s girlfriend works part time in wars. Wars are not fought by people anymore, but dozens of fighting formed dittos. It seemed every past time that I could have imagined was there, and more. The world was probably one of the most interesting things about the book. It also begs the question- What would you do if you didn’t have to risk your own body?

The plot started out very strong, and easy to follow, but towards the last half of the book confused me. I found it harder to keep up with what was going on, and feeling like I cared less. It has its moments of technological discussion that made me feel a little lost. Also Morris becomes a very in depth guy, while that is not a problem, it becomes one when his narrative and thought processes start to take up a large amount of pages. Because of this I started to feel bogged down, and a little lost in the pages.

There are not that many side characters, but of the few Pal is the most interesting. He is wheel chair bound, and his dittos are a little crazy, or maybe he is just a little crazy. The other characters , especially the two females either fell flat, or were not in the story enough to matter.

The story offers a very stunning world, but the plot fell off for me. It is off to a good start, but starts to become a slow read towards the end. I felt a strong lack of tension as the ending approached, and not enough excitement when secrets were becoming uncovered. Despite this I have to give the story props for the world, and the basic idea of soul copies. It offers the reader a huge amount of what if questions. This story would make some great discussion questions. I will leave you with one – Would you make a copy of yourself?

Another one that I recall loving from long ago, but unable to quite work out why on the re-read. The first half is great, the ham-handed characterization entirely befitting the world-building, but it's about twice as long as it ought to be (and I remember it being). The last third is excruciatingly exposition-laden, with a couple feeble threads of action woven through for relief. Memorable ideas, though.

Brin is one of my favorite authors, and I'm enjoying this one so far. Quite an interesting world he's created, as usual.

Very enjoyable, the story of a detective in a world where you can upload and download copies of yourself to and from short-lived golem-like duplicates, though with some flaws in the execution.

finally finished reading! this book needs a good editor!

I don't think I've ever changed my opinion on a book quite so dramatically while reading it. Half way through I loved almost everything about it - some of the language use is irritating, eg. "the maestra", "ditective", etc. - but otherwise it's a neat noir-style detective story in a setting that allows for some interesting twists.

By the 80% mark I wasn't so sure about it. Probably only a three-star book. By 90% I was down to one star and just powering through so I could say I finished it. So how does it all go wrong? Well, I should have taken the occasional technical details in the early parts as a warning; the cloning technology is dumb and makes no sense. It could have been left unexplained and it would have been fine. And if everything hadn't gone off the rails as it did I could even have overlooked the dodgy sci-fi. But it turns out the nature of the technology is what the whole climax is based on. Stop reading now if you don't want to know.

Souls are real. That's how it works. It's not a metaphor or a slang term or even ambiguous. It's literally human souls animating the clones, and the whole plot ends up being about the villain trying to become god by eating a whole lot of souls, and then the protagonist kind of does become god but not really. Also there's a time travel paradox and the whole thing is just dumb and bad and absolutely ruins what started out as a really neat premise.

Fuck this book.

I was a little wary of this one, because I loved the Uplift books, but hated The Postman and some of his other stand-alones. In this one, people can make clay copies of themselves that have an imprint of their soul, memories, etc. I enjoyed it (although I didn't rush through it or anything). One of the best things this type of scifi does is make you think about how a new technology would be used, and I thought he did a decent job with that.