I like audiobooks. And today I am writing about a series that I have just recently re-listened to. It is the Bobiverse series by Dennis E. Taylor. I will try my best to limit what I write and not give away too much in any of the stories, but hopefully give enough to entice one of you readers to maybe read/listen to these books.
I found this on audible back in 2016 or 17, and I immediately enjoyed it. There are currently 4 books as of this writing and there is a fifth on its way later this year.
The series starts with “We Are Legion (We Are Bob)”. This is a good intro book for the series and provides the background of the main character, Bob, and how he got himself into the situation he is in. In this book Bob is from the 21st century (basically present time), and he is killed in an accident. Then he “wakes up” 100+ years later and finds that he is now the brains of a computer. Then he is placed in a spaceship type thing and sent off to explore the universe. The book goes over the learning that Bob has to do before he can leave Earth. It also addresses the political issues Earth is having and the reason for the journey he is being sent on. They also address mental stability of a human that is now contained in a computer. He is given the ability to build more spaceships, clone his matrix, and then upload that to the new spacecraft. They discuss the ramifications of that a little in this book. This book introduces us to what happens when the Bob-clones encounter other “people” that came from other factions of Earth that were launched in space. Not all of them had the same goal for what they were going to do out in space.
In book 2 – “For We Are Many” – we find that about 40 years has past, and Bob has cloned himself a number of times, and those clones are doing their own thing as well. We run into more non-Bob ships. The Bob’s start interacting with species that are on other planets, and the book address what that means for the species and for the Bob’s. More mental health is addressed as well in that the Bob’s have found the importance of virtual reality bodies and living spaces is important to keeping them sane. The big thing in book 2 is the introduction of the big baddies called “The Others”. They have to figure out how to deal with this other space faring species that clearly has a different goal for the use of the universe than Bob does. This book is a great followup to book 1.
Then we get to book 3 – “All These Worlds” – and things have progressed more. Time is passing (I forget how much time between book 2 and 3) and the Bob’s are continuing to clone and explore the universe. They conclude the situation with “The Others” in ways you don’t expect at all. There isn’t a nice simple solution. But I would say the big thing in this book is the drift that is starting to show itself between the early Bob clones and and the later clones. There is strife that is starting to pop up in the differing of opinions on how things should be handled, and what the purpose the Bob’s are in the universe. In fact they are noticing an almost political feel to things starting to occur between the Bob-clones.
And I just finished book 4 – Heaven’s River – and this one is a bit different, but also some of the same. This book focuses heavily on a single “living environment” and the interaction that takes place between a few Bob-clones and the inhabitants. The goal of the Bob’s in ths book is to find a missing clone and they find that he is in the environment. That is a main story line in this book, and it is quit interesting. The other storyline in this one is more on the political seperations occuing within the Bob-clones as the new clones are further and further from the original Bob. It is very interesting to think that this is exactly how, in my opinion, how humans work. The more you get away from an original way of thinking the more change gets interjecting into it, and how that can create strife between those that want to adhere to the original ways and those that want to follow new ways/thinkings.
There are a lot of Star Trek references in the book. There is also a great reference to another book series I enjoy that you only get if you read that series as well. That other series is “Expiditionary Forces” by Craig Alanson. If you don’t know the reference it doesn’t take anything away from book, but it adds some hummor.
The reader for the audiobooks is the great Ray Porter. I have yet to listen to any book that he has read and not enjoyed it. When I started listening to audiobooks I never thought I would “follow” a reader, but would prefer to stick with authors or styles that I like, but Ray Porter is special. I have listened to other books that I may not have listened to because he has read them. I can strongly suggest him as a great reader of anything. It is true that after enough books by different authors you start to get the feel/tone of his reading and then the voices start to sound alike across different books but that is fine. You can get past that if the story is good.