What Am I Reading? New Weekly Sunday Feature
Some of you know I did a stint on the Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing Podcast where we interviewed many an author and discussed writing news and books. One of the things I miss is talking about the books I'm reading so I've decided to post about it weekly.
This week? The Bobiverse by Dennis E Taylor.
About: (From Amazon): Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and movies to watch. So it's a little unfair when he gets himself killed crossing the street.
Bob wakes up a century later to find that corpsicles have been declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state. He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets. The stakes are high: no less than the first claim to entire worlds. If he declines the honour, he'll be switched off, and they'll try again with someone else. If he accepts, he becomes a prime target. There are at least three other countries trying to get their own probes launched first, and they play dirty.
The safest place for Bob is in space, heading away from Earth at top speed. Or so he thinks. Because the universe is full of nasties, and trespassers make them mad - very mad.
My Thoughts/What's to like?: There's a real underlying sense of humour to Taylor's series- it's written in first person and lends itself so well to narration the audiobook should be your first stop to sample his work. It's best to read this in series, of which there are three and only three books. I listened to the Bobs and really enjoyed the humorous slant to the main character and how he views the world - or universe as it may be. The narrator is Ray Porter, who as always adds to the novels and makes them an easy listen. Dennis's writing is very reminiscent of John Scalzi's Fuzzy Nation, with a tongue in cheek take on society and politics as Bob navigates trying to save humanity who don't always want to be saved. The similarities to Scalzi isn't surprising since they are repped by the same agency - As an aside for the writers out there, I highly recommend you check out Dennis's publishing story as he is a runaway self publishing/hybrid success. He is also a Canadian, and I found out after the fact that we live in the same small town of Port Coquitlam, BC. Small worlds and big universes.
Who should give it a pass: This is Sci-F. It's a guy who get's turned into a giant spaceship for crying out loud. If you are not a fan of science fiction and the fantastical, even the pop culture references and humour may not be able to win you over.