Kiln People by David Brin
Interesting, some good concepts that I haven't seen approached from quite this vector before. I've seen a lot of reviews say they didn't like the ending but I didn't mind it at all.
The puns got a bit dreary by about halfway through.
I was a bit disappointed that the copy I bought from B&N had so many typos. If you want real quality you need to find a pirated copy, distributed by people who care enough to fix it after errors are discovered.