We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse Book 1)

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Taylor's "Bobiverse" series explore how technologies like cryonics, mind uploading and artificial intelligence might change the society and the human condition. [7] [8] Another major topic is global catastrophic risk, which is also featured in Outland and The Singularity Trap. [9] [10] In the opening of the book our titular Bob is in Vegas for a Science convention. Bob is a nerd who likes Science and Star Trek and owns a software company. While in Vegas, Bob is convinced by a "Sales critter" that he shouldn't pay to have his whole body cryogenically frozen. He argues that in the future the technology will exist to grow Bob a whole new body, so Bob agrees upon his death to have his head removed and frozen. What has he got to lose? Robert Johansson, more affectionately known as Bob, was an engineer in the 21st century who signed up for having his head cryogenically preserved upon his death for future resuscitation into a new body. In a strange ironic twist of fate, Bob died within 24 hours of doing so and woke up a bit more than a century later. What he didn't expect was that his new body will be in the form of a computer program; Bob has become a replicant. His mission was to be the artificial intelligence manning interstellar probes to search for habitable planets and it turns out that America was not the only country who wanted to lay claim to being the first to seek out new worlds.

Dennis E. Taylor uses a very interesting concept here, not necessarily a new concept, but one that has been very well-crafted. The entire story is centered on Bob. Bob is a protagonist who’s fun, smart, full of humor, bit of a sci-fi geek and also with a very strong moral compass. Bob’s personality permeates the book to great effect which appeal to most readers. It's fun at times, and the author tries to pull emotion out of the readers at times, but I just really didn't find myself caring that much. And again, NEITHER BOOKS HAD AN ENDING. It just drops off. The entire story has charm, extremely good characters, several interesting locations and a fantastic sense of humor. You’ll certainly look forward to the next book in the series. Eventually Bob the A.I. reaches the skies, and the story-telling fragments around four plot-lines (vaguest of spoilers follow). One, whether or not anyone on Earth is still alive after the war that launched Bob. The second, Bob's quest to seek out new habitable planets for humanity. Three, engagement with the other Bob-like technologies; and four, the discovery of sentient races. Since Bob has cloned himself but allowed for small variations in personality factors, each of these viewpoints is slightly different. Not different enough, however, largely because inter-Bob dialogue consists of smart-ass remarks and saying things like, “Hey, Gherkin. Miss me?” “Not from this range. Want to place a bet?” Goku’s tone was light, but I knew he was irritated. Because, well, I would have been. “Bite me. Did you look over the pics I sent?” This is the first book in Dennis E. Taylor's 'Bobiverse' series and as the story begins Bob Johansson, a friendly thirty-one year old geek and software engineer, has just sold his company and become fabulously rich. Looking forward to a lifetime of doing as he pleases he visits a geek-con in Las Vegas, steps out on the street and gets fatally run down by a car.In May 2019, Taylor was invited by Google to one of the "Talks at Google" where he gave some insight into what inspired his writings, and what his plans are for the next few years. [18] Personal life [ edit ] It shows the immense potential of the Sci-Fi tropes about mind uploading and thereby induced immortality and personality splitting/cloning, and especially the possibility of mind uploading for thousands of years of space travel, which might probably be the first option. Because it might take much longer, hopefully not forever, to get physical immortality without resident eviling the world population. I enjoyed it but I also caught myself fading off at times. I think all the thrillers are affecting my attention span! Bob and his copies have been spreading out from Earth for 40 years now, looking for habitable planets. But that's the only part of the plan that's still in one piece. A system-wide war has killed off 99.9% of the human race; nuclear winter is slowly making the Earth uninhabitable; a radical group wants to finish the job on the remnants of humanity; the Brazilian space probes are still out there, still trying to blow up the competition; And the Bobs have discovered a spacefaring species that sees all other life as food.

Berg, Guido (December 12, 2019). " "ChaosKatrin" aus Kolkwitz für Youlius-Award 2020 nominiert". www.otz.de. In addition, the universe that has been portrayed in the book is both fascinating and complex at the same time, from the Earth and its problems all the way to the other star systems. The plot also combines survival tactics against several other human factions to scientific discovery and space exploration. The setting splits the narration to different strands that are all linked. Even though this might be somehow confusing, the pay-off is a richer storyline, and one that you will be totally invested in. The author has also There wasn’t much suspense in this book for me and at times I felt like Bob was more of a teacher explaining something Sci-Fi to me. I laughed on an occasion when GUPPI came around. Thank goodness for that part of the plot because I needed the laughs in regards with all the computer and technology information.While working at his day job as a computer programmer, Taylor self-published his first novel and began working with an agent to try to publish his second novel We Are Legion. However, Taylor still had difficulty getting any publishing house to take on his work, and eventually published it through his agent's in-house publishing arm. An audiobook rights deal with Audible was also reached. Once recorded, We Are Legion became one of the most popular audiobooks on the service and was awarded Best Science Fiction Audiobook of the year. [1] Mechanical Failure by Joe Zieja. Zieja goes for a laugh a minute and ends up inducing a groan a minute. He comes up with the joke first, then contrives the plot to deliver the joke. "We are Legion" has a strong plot and manages to be funny along the way. It doesn't try too hard. There are plenty of pop culture references and maybe a few too many Star Trek and Star Wars jokes but it never goes over the top. Bob's behaviour is pretty believable for someone put in his position.

And that should tell you what you need to know about the suitability of the series to your reading needs. If that neither makes you laugh nor gives you a sense of the subject of the books, best you pass them by. Audiobook: Ray Porter once again does a good job here. He's speaks clearly at a good volume and with good inflection. He does a few voices, though as most of the characters are variations of Bob, he doesn't go too crazy with it.Salvation could come from something of an unlikely source. Some eighth generation Bobs have discovered something in deep space. Getting to Sol first is the key to saving the Earth, and possibly all of humanity. But they have to beat the Others there. Well, Bob left a little sooner then he was prepared for. He wakes up a century later and has been uploaded into computer hardware. When I think of my favourite books of 2016 that have sequels coming next year, The highbrow masterpiece Too like the lightning and political thriller of the future Infomocracy are first and foremost. While completely different I have to put Bobiverse Book 2 on my list. I must know what happens to the Deltans and the Bobs! This is a fun adventure and I awarded top rating for the sheer enjoyment. It is not a perfect book, far from it, but it enthralled me and for that I am grateful. And now to wait for the sequel... We follow a number of Bobs all over different solar systems that watch the Deltans (that's Bob#1), finding new planets, even other sentient species, a number help humanity out of sol so we don't die out ... and some make less positive encounters.

My minor criticisms of the book would be: It seemed like Bob should have woken up 1000 years in the future not 100. Some more detail on how the world ended up a crazy theocracy would have been interesting, although the "Cliff Notes" version was fun. I'm not sure that either narrator Ray Porter or Taylor knew exactly what to do with Homer He's kinda dumb but kinda smart? Some sort of defective Bob might have been interesting. I think of the "Simpsons" episode where all Homer's sperm bang into each other saying "Doh". I guess Homer is just a Bob who liked "The Simpsons" but didn't really sound like him? Not too sure and I thought some of the Chapters ended a little awkwardly. Despite the doom and gloom of many of the story’s threads though, For We Are Many is in fact a light, fun, and profoundly enjoyable read. It’s also full of sci-fi geekery but at the same time accessible enough so that even readers who don’t normally read the genre will be able to appreciate its charms. Any technical explanations are easy to grasp, not to mention many are also presented in a clever and humorous way, pulling in references from pop culture favorites like Star Trek or Star Wars. We also got some huge adversary here. I mean, a Dyson Sphere! So cool! Can't wait to see more of that. So a story where a contemporary human is turned into an AI and has AI like abilities, while familiar is already pretty interesting to me. The fact that Dennis E Taylor wants to tell the story of a modern human becoming a self replicating Von Neumann probe opens up the entire universe and allows the reader to experience it from a perspective we understand and can relate to - the "lovable geek". This 'more of the same' could have jaded the reader, but as it happens, you just get completely taken in by the various plot strands. It is compelling because Taylor makes you care for all these Bobs, and the rest of the cast (the good ones that is). The humour is ever present but not at the expense of the rest of the emotions scale. In fact, there is plenty of heart-ache too.We Are Legion (We Are Bob) was outside of my typical genre. I enjoyed this and thought some of the humor in it was needed for all the technical information about Bob, A.I. and exploring new worlds. in motion. Obviously, there’s a third book and with the protagonist’s nature, this might just be a longer series. It was good and well-written but didn't have a singular story line to get invested in or excited about throughout the novel. I thought it was pretty standard fare with some cool ideas thrown in. Without the bobs it would have been a little dull and even with them it wasn't remarkable. Ray Porter does an excellent job on the audio with this one. Kudos to him for making this book interesting when the subject matter was a bit dry for me.