For We Are Many by Dennis E. Taylor (Bobiverse #2)

For We Are Many by Dennis E. Taylor

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Jacket blurb:  Bob Johansson didn't believe in an afterlife, so waking up after being killed in a car accident was a shock. To add to the surprise, he is now a sentient computer and the controlling intelligence for a Von Neumann probe.

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.

Bob left Earth anticipating a life of exploration and blissful solitude. Instead he's become a sky god to a primitive native species, the only hope for getting humanity to a new home, and possibly the only thing that can prevent every living thing in the local sphere from ending up as dinner.

Read as an audio book.

The Bob's have multiplied and while some have gone forth to explore brave new worlds, many of early generations continue to carry out their self selected missions: Bob One is still reeling from being banished from the Deltan community and his friend Archimedes, he's also realizing what it means to be immortal as he watches over Archimedes and Archimedes growing family. Ricker, still suffering from the loss of Homer abd continues to pull humanity off of a destroyed earth. Ricker has reconnected with Bob's sisters family. Howard is struggling with the ramifications being in love. All the Bob's fear and loathe the coming of the Others and have vowed to do what the can to stop them.

This moved briskly along. There was more exploration of being a replicant AI and having emotions than in book one: love, loss, fear, anger, depression. There continues to be a subtle thread of sentience - of having the originators memories, but being one's own "soul".

The Bob's aren't perfect, they don't have all the answers, and for the most part, their hearts are in the right place. They feel guilt and remorse over actions taken that didn't turn out the way they anticipated. I did note some parallel and similar plot threads cropping up, but not similar enough to detract from the overall story arc.

I will note, this installment does end on a cliffhanger. Which frustrated me to no end as I was flying down the highway with a two hour drive in front of me, and couldn't download the next book in the series. Ah well, a break between books isn't a bad thing.

Recommended if you read book one.



View all my reviews