Book Series Recommendation: The Bobiverse, by Dennis E. Taylor

This post is a little different. I’m not going to review a book, but instead I’ll recommend a whole series.

The Bobiverse, A sci-fi series by Dennis E. Taylor is both entertaining and insightful. It currently includes 3 volumes, We Are Legion (We Are Bob), For We Are Many, and All These Worlds. All three are Audible Originals, meaning that they were only available as audiobooks on Audible for the first few months of their publication. (For more of what I think about audiobooks and Audible, see my previous post.) Dennis E. Taylor has also discussed the possibility of adding at least two additional titles to the series. His website can be found here.

The series has several fascinating technologies at its heart, and it closely examines some important issues and questions that these technologies could bring about. All of this is told somewhat comedically from the perspective of a cast of characters that are all copies of the same man’s mind.

How is this possible? Bob has his consciousness cloned into a computer program, and is sent into deep space as the on-board AI of a Von Neumann probe, a spaceship that uses advanced 3D printing technology to self-replicate. This would allow for exponential exploration of space.

The Von Neumann probe presents several technological concepts that are not only crucial to this story, but also to science fiction as a whole. These include:

• Artificial Intelligence
• Interstellar travel
• 3D printing

Creative use of these innovations makes for an engaging story, especially when it causes the reader to consider important questions like:

• What happens when humanity encounters other intelligent life?
• What happens when multiple copies of the same intelligence interact?
• Is a cloned copy of a human mind still a person?
• How does the passage of time affect an intelligence that doesn’t age?

If you find that you enjoy thinking about these concepts, and also enjoy skilled and humorous writing, I highly recommend Taylor’s Bobiverse to you. I won’t say any more for fear of spoiling too much.

That’s all for now.

-Sal