We Are Legion
by Dennis E. Taylor
Author's Description:
“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 honor, 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.”
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 honor, 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 Review - Rating - 9.5/10
This book is one of my all-time favorites and because of how much I loved it I chose it as the topic of my first review. I love the concept of a sentient machine exploring the universe and trying to find its place in it, and the author does a great job of balancing out the heavy topics the book covers (like the potential extinction of humanity and the idea of a computer thinking it’s a person) with solid humor and interesting adventures and side adventures. While I can’t give away any of the adventures without serious spoilers, I will note that while quite a few of them are warfare-related, there’s a lot more that are more about exploration or science, and it’s those non-violent adventures that make this book stand out. The way the book gets you invested in the characters means that when they’re investigating an anomaly, attempting to save a species, or terraforming a planet, the reader is rooting for them and interested in the outcome, even though the adventures are more abstract and pacifistic than those in a normal sci-fi story. My only warning for anyone reading this book is that it has a slower pace, which allows for greater character-building and world-building. This wasn’t a problem for me, because none of the plots are unnecessary, just long, and I’m a fast reader. I know that a few of the people I’ve recommended the book to had a hard time getting interested in it because of the slow plot though, so if you’re looking for a consistently fast-paced novel or something packed with action, this might not be for you. But if you’re a sci-fi fan like me, I highly recommend you read this book and the rest of the Bobiverse series.
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