We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

By: Dennis E. Taylor

Narrated by: Ray Porter

Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's Summary

There's a reason We Are Legion, We Are Bob was named Audible's Best Science Fiction Book of 2016: its irresistibly irreverent wit! Bob Johansson has just sold his software company for a small fortune and is looking forward to a life of leisure. The first item on his to-do list: spending his newfound windfall. On an urge to splurge, he signs up to have his head cryogenically preserved in case of death. Then he gets himself killed crossing the street. Waking up 117 years later, Bob discovers his mind has been uploaded into a sentient space probe with the ability to replicate itself. Bob and his clones are on a mission to find new homes for humanity and boldly go where no Bob has gone before.

Dennis E. Taylor’s hilarious novel sets the stage for the magnificent performance of Ray Porter, who revels in the brave new world of corpsicles, artificial intelligence, interstellar space probes, and space colonization in tantalizing detail. 

©2016 Dennis E. Taylor (P)2016 Audible, Inc.

Ignore the Publisher's Summary! This is Amazing!

While I enjoy science fiction, I'm not a die-hard reader of it. I kept seeing this book pop up in my recommendations, and I kept ignoring it each time I read the publisher's summary. It seemed like a generic plot and nothing notable. I suspect the author of the publisher's summary only read the first few chapters, as they didn't really seem to know what the book was about.

The story is interesting and fast-paced. In addition, Ray Porter is extremely talented and did an incredible job of delivering the story, as well as all the emotion and humor that went with it. I think this is one of his best performances.

I don't write reviews for books, but this one was good enough that I wanted to take the opportunity to potentially nudge someone else that might be on the fence about it.

701 people found this helpful

Beguiling

I have been attempting to expand on the science fiction authors I read. I discovered this debut novel by Dennis E. Taylor and decided to try it. I try to read debut novels to support new authors. The idea of the story I found intriguing. A brilliant software engineer was hit by a car and died unexpectedly. He had requested his brain be frozen at his death. When he is revived a hundred years later, he discovers that his mind has been co-opted by a group of religious fanatics called FAITH. Bob’s mind is now the computer AI of a space probe sent out to explore the galaxy for a new planet to inhabit. Bob then creates more of himself to spread out around the universe looking for an inhabitable planet. It turns out two other groups are hunting for an inhabitable planet also and will do whatever it takes to achieve their goal.

The book is well written. I found the idea of the human mind in the role of a controlling AI fascinating. The characters are interesting; the plot well developed. There is humor, good dialog and the story is highly entertaining.

The book is nine and half hours long. Ray Porter does an excellent job narrating the book. This is an example of how a great narrator makes the story better. Porter is an actor and award-winning audiobook narrator.

230 people found this helpful

Nerds will not be disappointed... linguists will

Great story. Compelling and fun. However, the repeated mispronunciation of Archimedes will haunt my nightmares.

12 people found this helpful

If you're on the fence about whether to read this, get off and read it!

So, I've been seeing this book around for a long time. And for just as long I thought the title seemed stupid, and so I avoided looking at it. Even after I read the description, I thought it sounded derivative and uninteresting, so I still avoided reading it. And then for no apparent reason, Nathan Lowell recommended it. Now, if you have any sense, when the reigning master of must-read, different-than-anything-else Science Fiction tells you to read something, you sit up and pay attention.
As a happy coincidence, audible had it on sale for under $5 this week, although at this point I probably would have dropped a credit on it even if they hadn't.

This book was nothing like I expected. You really get to know the different variations of Bob, what their personalities are, how they relate to the others, etc. The technology is interesting, the story is interesting, and the whole book is a great deal of fun. I was really sorry when it was over. Rarely have my expectations been so overturned by a book. I will definitely read others in the series if they appear.

78 people found this helpful

I returned it. Didn't like it.

While it was interesting for a while, I found it rather boring and just not interesting. It was well narrated, but I did not find the story held my interest. The premise sounded fascinating, but ehen the single main character does not have other characters or story lines to play off of, I thought it became too boring and I lost interest.

7 people found this helpful

Dizzying Tour de Force Performance of Great Book!

So many Bobs, so little time --

If you love sci fi, you already know about this awesome book. It's a pretty original concept -- governments clone human-personality-infused-AIs and send them into space as self-replicating probes to find new planets for humans to inhabit. Some of the probes go insane, some turn into weapons of mass destruction, and some . . .

. . . well, Bob is different. A bit of an independent loaner with no political axe to grind, Bob sets about creating a 'world' HE can live in first! Still, the prime directive is all about replicating, so bring on the Bobs!

Ray Porter does an amazing job voicing the various Bobs -- and all the other characters in this book -- while the pop culture sci fi references provide opportunities for a few homages to beloved characters. The book would not have been as fun to listen to without him!

I. CAN. NOT. WAIT. FOR. BOOK TWO!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!


ALSO, ahem. Sorry. Also, here's a shout out to Jim the Impatient for the recommendation! Thanks big guy!

158 people found this helpful

Only an Hour into the Book !!

I know there are a ton of people who have listened to this book already and have provided excellent reviews ... hell, that's why I bought the book.

I'm only an hour into this book, but it's already done something that no other audiobook that I've bought has done before. I was taking the train into work when I laughed out loud with a thunderous "HA!". I think I knew that I did it, but after glancing around the train car, virtually everyone was smiling at me.

Dennis Taylor can write ... and Ray Porter is giving me a great performance.

Thank you to everyone's review I read that convinced me I had to listen to this book.

And for everyone reading this ... buy it. You won't regret it.

187 people found this helpful

I love you Bob

I was getting desperate, all of my favourite series of books ‘Arisen’, ‘The Undead’ and ‘Expeditionary Force’ have either finished or waiting for the next in the series. I was… who am I kidding, ‘I am’… out of money! Truthfully I am so poor I walk down the street with one shoe, people ask me ‘did you lose a shoe?’ and I just say ‘No… I found one!’

Ok you get the picture… as a result of being poor I am very selective in the titles I purchase at the moment. I certainly don’t want to waste my money on junk! Wasting my money on junk seems to be all I have been doing lately... I have also decided it is time to increase the number of genre I listen to, so that I am not stuck in this situation like I am in now waiting for my favourite authors to release the next title in a series.

This title ‘We Are Legion’ had appeared a couple of times on my ‘based on previous’ titles but I had never taken the time to really check it out. It probably appeared on the list because I have listened to several books narrated by Ray Porter. I like Ray’s voice… but not to the same degree as R C Bray or Sean Runnette. So it was given the tentative tick for narration. The blurb interested me but didn’t really make me want to instantly smack my money down. However, the deal was done the moment I read the reviews!

Look I am just going to stop the jibber jabber! And tell you this one is definitely a winner! I would have paid more for it! The biggest problem with it is simple, it is so good, so interesting, so surprising that I listened to it in one day! So at this rate I was burning through my money faster than before! Thank goodness for pay day, because I am now able to purchase the next in the series. You’re a bad man Mr Dennis E Taylor you are like a crack dealer! You should be ashamed of yourself, you have me hooked so bad, I am like a monkey with two bananas in my hands!

Just do yourself a favour and get to know the Bobs! I love you Bob!

11 people found this helpful

THE UNIVERSE AS MY PLAYGROUND

I'M GLAD TO SEE A BOB FACTORY IN OPERATION
This is what Science Fiction is meant to be. The fans for this book will be Legion. This is full of lots of space travel, exploring of planets, terraforming, discovery of aliens, science talk, colonization, and of course THE BOBS AND THE BOBIAN FEDERATION. I was reminded of THE MARTIAN, although not as funny, Frederik Pohl and James P. Hogan. There are some space fights, but those who love space and all the possibilities, will enjoy this most.

SO THIS IS LIKE ANDROMEDA STRAIN?
As usual, Ray Porter makes this even better.

ALL HAIL BOB!

259 people found this helpful

Excellent plot-loved the story line details

This is a great story for the typical sci-fi story lover; especially someone who is familiar with 80's and 90's sci-fi TV references. The narrator does a great job playing multiple characters, using several different voices-the one from the Star Wars Admiral is awesome. I listened to this book and then went and saw Rogue One the same night and chuckled because the narrator could have been the actor on the screen. (if you listen to the book you'll now what I mean.) If you like books like Player One, Monster Hunters, Ancillary Justice, anything by John Scalzi, and TV shows like Battlestar Galactica, Dark Matter and The Expanse then I'm pretty sure you'll enjoy this book. And if you don't, Audible has that great return policy. I look forward to listening to the next book in the series!

26 people found this helpful

An unexpected gem

I love this book but nearly didn't pick it up. I've tried a few titles lately that wouldn't necessarily be my cup of tea. Things like "off to be the wizard", "the passage" and "the final winter" - all probably good books but they didn't gel with me, and because of that, I nearly held off on We Are Legion to go for something else. I couldn't be more glad I didn't as I've only had it 37 days and I think I've listened to it start to end at least 9 times.

Part of what I love is that the book somehow manages to have a single driving character that is at the same time feels like several characters, all of which I'm jealous of. Getting out into the stars has been something I've dreamed of since I was first able to understand that there was an out there to get into. I'd probably take Bob's deal in a heartbeat given the choice. To top it off, it paces well, it does things that I didn't always expect and sets up for the next book 2 (out in March according to the author).

It also rekindled my love of that kind of science. The idea of von neumann probe probes was something I vaguely knew when I was younger but which kind of fell out of my head as I got older. The book brought them back to me and I ended up doing a lot of reading about the practicalities of them.

I rarely write reviews (in ~4 years with Audible, this will only be my 4th) but I can't recommend this enough - there's a reason that papers have been listing it as one of the best Audiobooks of 2016, and it won the audible best sci-fi of the year too.

138 people found this helpful

More please!

Stumbled on this and couldn't find enough time in my life each day to keep listening.
Great concept and well balanced character driven narrative alongside a good mix of plot lines.
Plenty of amusing tributes and references for sci-fi fans, but without a deep love of any being needed to enjoy the book and appreciate the humour.
I have seen that the series is planned as a trilogy and eagerly await book 2 on Audible. The narrator is well chosen and brings the story to life very well. If I'm being picky I'd have liked the story to develop more and book 1 to have been longer, I guess the old saying "leave them wanting more" has it's place here; if the next book was longer I'd not complain though!
If anyone isn't sure they should give this a go, please take the gamble as I did as it is well worth it.

5 people found this helpful

A project management report rather than a story

Not sure why this has had so many rave reviews. It really felt like a promising premise turned it to a build your own Bobiverse to do list.. at times It felt like a narration of someone playing sim city build a city game. Good performance, but that didn’t save it for me.

3 people found this helpful

Surprising

I found this title just perusing through Amazon and the other reviewers persuaded me to give it a go. I was not disappointed.

Great story and great concept. An real Sci fi fan will love this. it's obvious the author knows his stuff about software, science and other Sci fi titles as the knowledge and facts are littered through but never used incorrectly.

Definitely worth a read!

11 people found this helpful

Expanding Headspace

Well this is an interesting little gem! "Bobiverse" gives you a reasonable expectation of just how serious and in-depth the author is aiming at and there is definitely an almost young adult feel to some of the writing and narration. However, there is cleverness here too, once the author gets into the implications of a software generated mind controlling advanced technology the whole thing expands and becomes rather inventive. The Bobiverse term suddenly makes sense.

I can't say I was quite as sold on it as the majority seem to have been but it is a little different and it may well be interesting to see how much further Taylor can take this concept. I was already finding I needed to concentrate on the main character, err I mean characters, err well maybe it was both!

22 people found this helpful

A good book for Sci-Fi newbies.

An interesting concept of the future in the hands of artificial intelligence written in a simple and humorous way.

This is an easy science fiction listen and a perfect choice to those who begin their journey into science fiction reading escapism or those who simply want to relax with a good book.

Although the story is not hugely innovative, it will easily broaden your imagination.

The author deserves big thumbs up for the main characters, who are well-crafted, full of personality and humour.

Ray Porter's narration is good and brings the story to life. I hope to come across more books read by him.

Overall, the book is worth spending a credit and stealing few hours of your free time.

18 people found this helpful

Loved this book

It was a pleasure to listen to this book. The scientific grounding made the story very interesting. The fact is that it was 'clean' made it enjoyable. I highly recommend this book.

25 people found this helpful

Out of this world

This is got to be one of the best well thought out and thought provoking books out there. He has good pace and teaching in gauged thoroughly. Can't wait for the next one

17 people found this helpful

Loved it

Any additional comments?

Loved the story very funny. The only problem was that it ended please hurry up with the next one.

24 people found this helpful

Bob blew my socks off!

I LOVED THIS BOOK!

IN CAPS BECAUSE I LOVE IT THAT MUCH.

This is the sort of book I dream of - wonderful story - genuinely imaginative, creative, and absolutely took me to places I would have never got under my own steam.
We follow Bob as he dies, wakes up as an AI, launches himself off into the universe and replicates and explores.
This book is fun, funny, somewhat uplifting, and a really brilliant story.
I enjoyed the nods to some classic SciFi, and really didn't want this one to end.

I'm not sure how I'll contain myself until the next book comes out, this has been truly wonderful and leaves me wanting lots more!

6 people found this helpful