About

For We Are Many is the second book in the Bobiverse series written by Dennis E. Taylor.

For We Are Many book cover

Blurb

Bob Johansson didn't believe in an afterlife, so waking up after being killed in a car accident was a shock. To add to the surprise, he is now a sentient computer and the controlling intelligence for a Von Neumann probe.

Bob and his copies have been spreading out from Earth for 40 years now, looking for habitable planets. But that's the only part of the plan that's still in one piece. A system-wide war has killed off 99.9% of the human race; nuclear winter is slowly making the Earth uninhabitable; a radical group wants to finish the job on the remnants of humanity; the Brazilian space probes are still out there, still trying to blow up the competition; And the Bobs have discovered a spacefaring species that sees all other life as food.

Bob left Earth anticipating a life of exploration and blissful solitude. Instead he's become a sky god to a primitive native species, the only hope for getting humanity to a new home, and possibly the only thing that can prevent every living thing in the local sphere from ending up as dinner.

Review

It's almost 3 years since I read the first book in this series, thanks to the TBR abyss. I had vague recollection of the events in the first book and trying to jiggle my memory by reading a few reviews didn't yield much. I went ahead anyway.

As the book title accurately indicates, there were just too many Bobs. There's a glossary at the end of the book, but I didn't bother trying to keep track of them. And surprisingly, the book still read well. After a few chapters, it was easy to get immersed in the particular part of the galaxy and not worry about the overall plot. I didn't really have a preference for a particular Bob as most of them had something new to explore. The Earth subplot was definitely my least favorite due to the politics and sabotage.

The book managed to throw a few surprises and I'd say they were done well. I'm used to increasing stakes from reading way too many progression fantasy books, so a new big bad wasn't a deal breaker for me. Usually, such evil beings lead to DNF these days for me, but I was enjoying rest of the book too much and I've even already started the third book.

My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟☆

What others are saying

From Bradley's review on goodreads:

This second book can be seen as more of the same as the first book, but with one huge caveat. It's a character novel or (multi-character AND single-character) series. Confused? Don't be. It's all just Bob.

From J.L. Sutton's review on goodreads:

The drama in this book relies on beating out the intractable competition, finding and protecting new sentient life and finding a home for humans who are being displaced because of an impending nuclear winter. Again, this was a fast-paced and enjoyable read

Bingo

/r/Fantasy/ 2022 bingo categories:

  • Set in Space
  • Author Uses Initials
  • Non-Human Protagonist (HM)
  • Self-Published OR Indie Publisher
  • No Ifs, Ands, or Buts (HM)