We Are Legion (We are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor (Bobiverse #1)

We Are Legion We Are Bob by Dennis E. Taylor

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Jacket Blurb: Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and movies to watch. So it's a little unfair when he gets himself killed crossing the street.

Bob wakes up a century later to find that corpsicles have been declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state. He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets. The stakes are high: no less than the first claim to entire worlds. If he declines the honor, he'll be switched off, and they'll try again with someone else. If he accepts, he becomes a prime target. There are at least three other countries trying to get their own probes launched first, and they play dirty.

The safest place for Bob is in space, heading away from Earth at top speed. Or so he thinks. Because the universe is full of nasties, and trespassers make them mad - very mad.

Read as an audio book.

I picked this book up on Audible because nothing else was grabbing my fancy. I was in "a mood" and needed something...different, quirky, and a bit humorous. This was perfect.

Book blurb(s) summarize the book fairly accurately given the someone complex nature of the plot. Bob dies early, tragically, and just after signing papers that would have his head frozen and preserved. When he is revived nearly 100 years later, the society he knew is gone, AI's (and thus Bob) have no rights, and it's a race to the stars.

The first part of the book really kept my attention as Bob navigates being "brought back to life" so to speak as a computer. It was interesting how the author explored things such as sentience, sensory deprivation, cloning, and being self-aware. I really enjoyed that aspect.

The second half of the book, as the Bob's multiply and go forth into corners of space to tackle their respective challenges, I felt the plots became bogged down a bit and I found myself drifting off into other thoughts and had to "rewind" more than once.

I also felt the narrator did a very good performance, and while I didn't care for all of his voices, I appreciated the effort to make certain Bob's sound different to the extent possible, and our Deltan's even more different than the Bobs.

I will also add, while this doesn't quite end on a cliffhanger, not all plot lines are resolved. So...I may be reading more. Recommended.



View all my reviews