Catship reviewed Ich bin viele by Dennis E. Taylor (Bobiverse, 1)
Silly and fun
Soooo, ok. It's a story about Bob, a tech bro whose biggest problem in the world is that his girlfriend cheated on him, who dies suddenly, gets frozen (he made the contract just in time) and awakens as a computer program property of the laughable theocracy the US developed into.
None of the politics are very deep – FAITH is characterised by mean priests, lots of bomb-y infighting and silly acronyms, there is no word about marginalised groups. Which works out just fine, since it is mostly the scenic backdrop for Bob.
Sent into space as the AI pilot for a self replicating space probe, Bob gets to live all his nerd dreams. Of course, as a former engineer and scifi convention goer, he is uniquely qualified for all the tasks in the universe. He is the programmer, designer and strategic mastermind needed in any situation he enters. He gets …
Soooo, ok. It's a story about Bob, a tech bro whose biggest problem in the world is that his girlfriend cheated on him, who dies suddenly, gets frozen (he made the contract just in time) and awakens as a computer program property of the laughable theocracy the US developed into.
None of the politics are very deep – FAITH is characterised by mean priests, lots of bomb-y infighting and silly acronyms, there is no word about marginalised groups. Which works out just fine, since it is mostly the scenic backdrop for Bob.
Sent into space as the AI pilot for a self replicating space probe, Bob gets to live all his nerd dreams. Of course, as a former engineer and scifi convention goer, he is uniquely qualified for all the tasks in the universe. He is the programmer, designer and strategic mastermind needed in any situation he enters. He gets to do tons of fun and sometimes questionable things – improve on the design of his space craft, invent subspace communication, discover a species in their stone age and play god to them.
Except, and this is what makes it fun to read, it's not all him, not Bob. Bob self-replicates as planned, and it is immediately clear that the others aren't just copies of him, they all have their own quirks and interests and go for different roles in their big explory space adventure. So yes, it is a very plural story, I'm glad to report. Not just in this way, also, like, they create some more characters in their VR environments, and one certainly acquires a personality.
So like. This is not deep. This is a light-hearted exploration of scifi cliches and a bunch of quick answers to big questions, all via a generic yet likable cast of Bobs. It's a lot of "eh, let's see what happens" and hand waving on a cosmic scale with varying degrees of accountability. I really enjoyed it, I don't remember another so deeply the-opposite-of-diverse story that I enjoyed so much. I think I'll go for part two!
