• Heaven's River

  • Bobiverse, Book 4
  • By: Dennis E. Taylor
  • Narrated by: Ray Porter
  • Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (38,749 ratings)

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Heaven's River  By  cover art

Heaven's River

By: Dennis E. Taylor
Narrated by: Ray Porter
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Publisher's summary

Civil war looms in the Bobiverse in this brand-new, epic-length adventure by Audible number one best seller Dennis E. Taylor.

More than a hundred years ago, Bender set out for the stars and was never heard from again. There has been no trace of him despite numerous searches by his clone-mates. Now Bob is determined to organize an expedition to learn Bender’s fate - whatever the cost.

But nothing is ever simple in the Bobiverse. Bob’s descendants are out to the 24th generation now, and replicative drift has produced individuals who can barely be considered Bobs anymore. Some of them oppose Bob’s plan; others have plans of their own. The out-of-control moots are the least of the Bobiverse’s problems.

Undaunted, Bob and his allies follow Bender’s trail. But what they discover out in deep space is so unexpected and so complex that it could either save the universe - or pose an existential threat the likes of which the Bobiverse has ever faced.

Heaven’s River is the fourth installment in the blockbuster Audible Original Bobiverse series - which has sold more than one million copies.

©2020 Dennis E. Taylor (P)2020 Audible Originals, LLC.

Interview: How the Bobiverse Defined Dennis E. Taylor's Career

'...I kept going and going and going, and suddenly I had a novel.'
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  • Heaven's River
  • '...I kept going and going and going, and suddenly I had a novel.'

Publisher's summary

Civil war looms in the Bobiverse in this brand-new, epic-length adventure by Audible number one best seller Dennis E. Taylor.

More than a hundred years ago, Bender set out for the stars and was never heard from again. There has been no trace of him despite numerous searches by his clone-mates. Now Bob is determined to organize an expedition to learn Bender’s fate - whatever the cost.

But nothing is ever simple in the Bobiverse. Bob’s descendants are out to the 24th generation now, and replicative drift has produced individuals who can barely be considered Bobs anymore. Some of them oppose Bob’s plan; others have plans of their own. The out-of-control moots are the least of the Bobiverse’s problems.

Undaunted, Bob and his allies follow Bender’s trail. But what they discover out in deep space is so unexpected and so complex that it could either save the universe - or pose an existential threat the likes of which the Bobiverse has ever faced.

Heaven’s River is the fourth installment in the blockbuster Audible Original Bobiverse series - which has sold more than one million copies.

©2020 Dennis E. Taylor (P)2020 Audible Originals, LLC.

About the Performer

Ray Porter has over 400 narrated titles available on Audible.com. He has won several Audiofile Earphones awards, a Voice Arts award, and has been nominated multiple times for an Audie award. In addition to narration, he has been in multiple theatrical productions and appeared in various films and TV shows and will be in the upcoming release of Zack Snyder’s * Justice League* as Darkseid. A Dennis Taylor fan, he’s very excited about the release of Heaven’s River.

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What listeners say about Heaven's River

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

BOB-tastic!!! 🛸

-Okay... In all fairness, I’ve gotta admit that the first three BOBiverse books easily rank among my all time favorite audible books. I have listen to the complete series at least half a dozen times. I will also admit that I downloaded Heaven’s River the moment it became available and immediately put in a marathon listening session. So, with that said... NOT disappointed. At first I was skeptical on how to meaningfully continue the series (especially when the synopsis makes it feel like nothing more than a needless “Quest for Bender” follow up). I couldn’t have been any further off the mark. Even though the first section of the story primarily revolves around Bob-prime, the audience is quickly propelled into the realization that Bob’s distant clones aren’t just petulant children, but may indeed have their own legitimate point of view. As the listener, you really do begin to question who is right... and just because you’re familiar with a character doesn’t mean it is who you would naturally align with in the “real”. The story provides some very timely commentary on the validity of a dissenting ideologically in a fractured society. I will admit, at times I did feel the actual “quest” to find/rescue Bender was a bit of needlessly protracted time filler, but Ray Porter’s superb narration skills keeps the extended storyline tolerable. Ultimately, If you loved the earlier entries into the BOBiverse, then you will have no problem picking up with the rest of the moot and enjoying the ride. If one thing has been made clear to me with this book, it is that the BOBiverse has the potential for a series of never ending stories. Long live (I mean “clone”) Bob!

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226 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

filler book

I really liked the last 3 books a lot but this one is no good. positive reviews are perplexing to me, buy it if you care about continuity more than story.
12h are just B-roll, running away scenes, nothing interesting happens like the maduro or the others or spaceships related. Main story is very isolated, imagine BoB running around in robot disguise. should have lasted 3h max. Background story is more bobiverse group related, author did not want to commit any decisions so minor events happen, get talked about and waved away,

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139 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

As Skippy would say, five stars, duhhhh!!!

If you’re like me you got up early the day this was released and are already done with it. If for some reason you listened to the first three and are on the fence about getting the long awaited fourth installment, rest assured it is well worth the credit! Fantastic book Dennis and great performance as always by Ray!

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83 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

The Bobiverse takes a turn

Dennis Taylor's "Bobiverse" series is a great sci-fi listen. Packed with humor, geek references, and thought provoking storylines, I have throughly enjoyed the series. For the most part, this book does continue on with that general theme, though it did feel that Taylor was left a bit adrift as to exactly where to take the story without the "big bad" of "THE OTHERS" to confront anymore. Instead, the story tackles the implications of the diverging clone personalties of Bob- the "drift" as he calls it. As personalities continue to drift farther and farther from original Bob, philosophical differences about interacting with sentients (or "ephemerals") becomes a major sore spot, as the Bobs try to decide what exactly to do with relative eternity.
Of course, most of this story is taken up with the search for Bender, which leads to a giant megastructure and a mystery about it's creation and creators. Needless to say (slight spoiler), the vast majority of the inhabitants are very technologically limited, which bring the mystery about how they came to be in such an impressive feat of engineering. Unfortunately MOST of book 4 is bogged down with the drudgery of using the "mannies" to try and infiltrate the technologically limited society to unravel the puzzle. It's an intriguing enigma that Taylor created and you obviously want the answers to the questions, but the book gets very bogged down in the minutiae of just traveling through and interacting with this civilization. So compared to the other books it's really quite the slog. There are similarities to the subplot with the Deltans, but unlike that subplot there isn't much diverging from this theme for most of the book, Where the Deltan life (particularly Archimedes') was interesting and interspersed with other plot lines, this is more of a drudge.
However I do have hope that the storyline will continue with more books, as the overall arc of the series continues to be a very interesting one. I'd have to give this book a lower score than the other 3 as it does drag on as I mentioned, but still I have no regrets about getting this book. I just look forward to the next one in the series.

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81 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Great Series, weakest addition to the series.

I loved all the previous books but this one lacked something and it is hard to pin point. It felt like the whole story was based on the divide between bobs but they spent so much time not exploring that. Is the longest book in the series and it feels like it shouldn't have been.

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63 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Anthropology ?

I would like to say at the beginning I was looking forward to this particular release. About halfway into the book I became irritated by the Keystone cop approach to this story. Chapter after chapter, the lack of focus became overwhelming. The main theme of heavens river became a anthropological mess. All human attributes made the story ridiculous. It’s one thing to have Bob spacecraft ,virtual reality ,and another thing to understand why the author would abandon the more science fiction attributes of The first three books. As with most of these long extended series, the final two chapters leave so many possibilities I can’t even count them. All the new players were never flushed out and The soap opera approach to ridiculous situations took over. The author chose not to push the Bobaverse forward, but rather took us down the path of a very long and tedious anthropology book.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Only 3 hrs in .. I will be up again until 2 AM...

Got B4 today - immediately hooked. Story is shaping up to be as complex as any other, Ray Porter is doing a GREAT job, the Bob's have really developed a disparate society. Can't wait to find out what the Mega Structure is!

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Quest to Keep Bender's Matrix Dry*

*Yeah, that should be the title.
After the brilliance that was the first 3 books, this one falls flat. Hell, it barely registers as passable Sci-fi.
There were a couple interesting story arcs but they never matured. Most of the book involved running away from bad-tempered "beaver creatures" while keeping some electronics from the drink. Ultimately the solution is wax paper and lots of scurrying. Quite a let down from SCUT, SIDAR and railguns.
I want my money back Taylor.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Thanks for the reference.

I love these books, the narrator, everything. But what I really love is when the author makes a reference to one of my other all time favorite books, I can't help but love these series even more.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

California Levels of Intellect

Man. Love the Bobiverse, but Mr. Taylor is starting to get preachy with this installment. And not the sophisticated preachy where you don't recognize it until after the book is finished. Nope, this is smack you in the face with a whiffle bat preachy. Nothing subtle about it. But what's worse is that it's just weak sauce stuff, very current year, very virtue signal b.s. I'll give one example:

There's a passage where one of the Bob's is talking to an alien creature about the golden rule: do to others as you would have done to you. Mr. Taylor demonstrates his utter failure to comprehend what this rule is by interpreting it literally. But coming from the left side of life, nuance should not be expect. The alien says that the traditional golden rule is actually the silver rule and the real golden rule is "do to others what they would want done to them". The fact that do unto others as you would have done to you encompasses this "new" golden rule seems to be lost on Mr. Taylor. The example of how this new golden rule is better is as follows (no spoilers): if you like meat and a vegetarian asks for food and you give the vegetarian meat (like you would want) you're being cruel. Unfortunately Mr. Taylor is incapable of recognizing that if you would prefer meat, and the vegetarian would prefer plant based food, offering the vegetarian the food they prefer is the same as getting the food you prefer.

But no, in order to virtue signal his wokeness he creates the strawman and wins against a false argument.

Ugh.

Whatever.

It's still a decent book. Ray Porter is masterful as always. The story is engaging and engrossing, but I hope this isn't a pattern for future works by Mr. Taylor. And if you read this, Mr. Taylor, go find some people you disagree with and spend some time talking to them without judging them for thinking different things than you think. You might find you can avoid basic logical failures like the one above if you honestly engage with people that think differently than you.

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