When Robert Johansson's software company hit it big, the first thing he did was secure his own future with a visit to CryoEterna, a cryogenics company... though a man
in his thirties surely has plenty of time before worrying about death.
He didn't make it through the next weekend.
Revived over a hundred years in the future, Bob is now at the mercy of a theocracy that took over America and determined "corpsicles" like himself to be nonhuman; his assets
were stripped, his mind uploaded into a computer, and failure to cooperate with his new masters means immediate termination. Nor are they the only threat to his existence, as
factions within the theocracy and external saboteurs continually threaten the project he's supposed to be part of: a self-replicating deep-space probe meant to scout for
habitable planets. There may even be other AI-manned probes already out there, launched by rival nations, none of which will be friendly to him or his mission. Plus the sheer
stress of being reduced to a computer AI has driven more than one revived person insane, not helped by the possibility that his new masters may have manipulated his new "brain"
in ways he doesn't know.
For a lifelong science fiction fan and all-around computer nerd, it's both the dream of a lifetime and a nightmare. To survive, Bob will need all his wits about him... or, at
the very least, a few more Bobs.
Review
With a throwback feel, We Are Legion (We Are Bob) evokes both a sense of fun and a sense of wonder. Bob's deep-space adventures are grounded in science, but even a
lay fan like myself could follow along easily enough. It moves fairly well, even before it splits to follow copy-Bobs (each with a variant personality and new name) through
multiple adventures, from dodging rival AI probes to exploring new planets and alien life-forms to salvaging what's left of Earth's population after the seemingly-inevitable
planet-killing nuclear war. If I have any complaint, it's that the ending feels a bit incomplete, as though the book was never intended to be its own arc; there are at least
two more Bobiverse books out, so that may be the case. Overall, though, it's a well-paced and enjoyable read, particularly for fans of science fiction and space
exploration.
Bob's life was uneventful, but his afterlives are more than making up for lost time. Once a twenty-first century computer geek and sci-fi nerd, he found himself
reanimated a hundred years after death as an AI replica, tasked with manning a deep space probe. His job was to secure colony worlds and produce more probes while
dodging hostile probes from other nations, saboteurs, and a potentially overwhelming alien entity.
Nothing like a little challenge to make life interesting...
After a rocky start, Bob and his various "descendants" - replicant copies, each developing distinct personalities - seem to slowly be getting a handle on things. Some
still expand the "Bobiverse" through distant star systems, while others contend with cantankerous colonists from rival human nations, explore potential new homes for
humanity... and assess the threat posed by the Others, an alien race that behaves like locusts, leaving untold devastation in their wake. So far, their paths have not
crossed directly, but as big as the galaxy is, odds are the Others will be heading toward Sol sooner rather than later. Only the Bobs stand in their path - and nothing
they have would make a dent in the hive.
Review
Picking up roughly where the first book left of, this volume again follows multiple Bobs in multiple systems. They thought they had come to terms with their new status
as essentially immortal beings, but find themselves struggling to cope when faced with direct evidence of the frailty of mortal bodies and mortal friends - or mortal love
interests. The original Bob's impromptu job of "sky god" to the Deltans takes unexpected turns, and the discovery of sapients in the likely path of the Others' voracious
conquests puts other Bobs in the unenviable role of deciding whether a species, an entire planetary ecosystem, lives or dies. Meanwhile, humans remain as incorrigible as
ever, infighting even as Earth's habitability plummets, then continuing to fight on colony worlds... even as some of those worlds scheme to fight back.
The story sometimes gets a bit confusing, with the growing number of Bob-replicants under various names, but it remains interesting, with the throwback, sense-of-wonder
feel evocative of older Star Trek episodes, back when space travel was more about science, invention, discovery, and hope, even amid despair, than Big Bads and
broody fatalism. Some nice twists hint at a fairly intense Book 3... which I suppose I'll have to order now. Dang it.
Bob has come a long way from his old life in the twenty-first century... in most every way imaginable. As the AI of a self-replicating space probe, he and his
"descendants" have lived their wildest science fiction nerd dreams of exploring new worlds across the stars - and experienced the nightmares of planetary apocalypse
and the seemingly-unstoppable alien threat of the locustlike Others. The Bobs have successfully spread human colonies to several habitable worlds, but new troubles
- from native life forms developing a taste for human blood to the ever-present danger of people being people in the worst ways possible - keep them busy... and more
than a little exhausted. It doesn't help that the passing years remind them more and more of their immortality, as friends age and die. Meanwhile, the Others' threat
to reach Sol and wipe out Earth has not been forgotten, and now they've seen firsthand what the aliens can do, having witnessed their merciless stripping of the
Pavs' homeworld. Bob was never a military man, with no taste for war, but he'll have to learn fast if if the human species is to survive - not to mention the
self-replicating Bob species, whoever or whatever it has become.
Review
Like the previous installment of this probable trilogy (I've learned never to say never when talking about these things), All These Worlds starts fast, as if
there had been no gap between the books at all. Given the proliferation of Bobs, it took a little while to regain my footing, but soon enough I was reoriented and
enjoying the ride. The old-school sense of wonder about science, the cosmos, and the potential of alien worlds continues unabated, remaining a welcome break in a genre
that sometimes gets a little too broody and gritty these days. That's not to say there's no darkness here, of course. The Others remain a threat, building to a grand
confrontation that decides the fate of Sol, humanity, and possibly the entire galaxy. At least as interesting is the continued evolution of Bob and his clones (and his
clones-of-clones). While the original Bob "goes native" on Eden among the Deltans, others are forced to confront the fact that they are no longer human beings, that they
are something new, something other... something, perhaps, that could or should have greater goals than serving the "ephemerals" who built them for the rest of their
existence. Still, the Bobs retain their inherent sense of self and humor, with plenty of nuggets for sci-fi fans and general science geeks to enjoy. It all wraps up in a
grand finale that came close to earning it another half-star. A few flaws here and there (such as a tendency for women characters to be a little stereotypical around the
edges) only barely held it back. Overall, though, I still highly recommend this trilogy(?) to anyone who enjoys hard, science-based space tales and who misses the days
when the genre was about exploring new worlds and wonders, and not just brooding over dystopias or beating up a bigger, badder bad guy each time out.
