Futures near perfect

THE Kil’n Time website urges: “Express yourself and have fun painting your own pottery in our upbeat contemporary studio.” This is David Brin’s Kil’n People to a T: upbeat, contemporary, pottery, fun and, yes, expressing himself. His “Kil’n” is killing, too. Private eye Al Morris duplicates his personality into short-lived ceramic clones to cope with cases and chores. Privacy is dead. As archetype and clones chime in with different accounts of the same day, it gets confusing. Brin’s question – what is human? – catalyses profound changes “betwixt damnation and impassion’d clay”. The saving grace for his clay is the discovery of the world-soul, where all are equal.…