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(as of Oct 10, 2024 05:01:48 UTC – Details)
Civil war looms in the Bobiverse in this brand-new, epic-length adventure by Audible number one best seller Dennis E. Taylor.
More than a hundred years ago, Bender set out for the stars and was never heard from again. There has been no trace of him despite numerous searches by his clone-mates. Now Bob is determined to organize an expedition to learn Bender’s fate – whatever the cost.
But nothing is ever simple in the Bobiverse. Bob’s descendants are out to the 24th generation now, and replicative drift has produced individuals who can barely be considered Bobs anymore. Some of them oppose Bob’s plan; others have plans of their own. The out-of-control moots are the least of the Bobiverse’s problems.
Undaunted, Bob and his allies follow Bender’s trail. But what they discover out in deep space is so unexpected and so complex that it could either save the universe – or pose an existential threat the likes of which the Bobiverse has ever faced.
Heaven’s River is the fourth installment in the blockbuster Audible Original Bobiverse series – which has sold more than one million copies.
4.5
Reviewer: Eliot Prescott
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Thoroughly enjoyable story in the Bobiverse. Fun, witty, thought-provoking. Six Stars.
Review: Just finished this book. Thoroughly enjoyed it. As with the rest of the Bobiverse books, it combines a good concept with fun, witty writing and just the right amount of science. It’s a real shame that the first reviews you’ll see trash the book because of the author’s decision to give Audible an exclusive release window before publishing the print and Kindle editions. Come on folks, artists deserves to make decisions on how to monetize their work. Anyway, enough of the business side of things, and on to the book …About twenty pages into this book, I decided I needed to go back and read the first three to refresh my memory of Pavs, the Others, Bob genealogy, who is on which planet, etc. It was fun to go back and start from the beginning, even though I’d seen the ending. This fourth book picks up on the unsolved disappearance of Bender, whose absence persisted in defiance of Chekhov through the first three. Unlike the first three books, which spanned multiple stories across multiple worlds, the action of this fourth book is focused almost exclusively on one world. Of course, Ringworld was also limited to one world, so it’s not much of a limitation. As with other books in the series, the writing is sharp, and authentic nerds will catch all kinds of references that zip by without the need for comment (i.e., they’ll be missed by non nerds, but that’s OK by all of us). This book gets a bit more into the philosophy of artificial life (a theme that was introduced in the first book, but then dispensed with quickly when Bob-1 looked into the abyss and decided “Still Bob”). I credit the author, who has a point of view, for treating the subject in a way that lets readers develop their own. This fourth book is devoid of the space battles that punctuated the first three; honestly, I didn’t even notice the missing military sci fi element until I’d finished. The only downside is that I could see the resolution of the central mystery about ten parsecs away (as will anyone who remembers TOS 022). Despite the similarity of premise, the treatment was different enough that I still thoroughly enjoyed the book, and given the role Star Fleet plays in this book, I viewed the similarity as hommage. The last chapter makes it clear that the author plans to continue this series (yeah!) but the book does not end on a cliffhanger (double yeah!).By Book 4, it’s hard for an author to write a book that’s consistent with but distinct fro the first three. This author accomplishes the task. It’s the Bobiverse, all right, but no sharks are jumped.By the way, if you haven’t read Bobiverse 1-3, I’d recommend starting from the beginning. It’s not strictly necessary, but you’ll enjoy the book more if you understand the universe and the characters, so it’s worth starting this journey from the headwaters.
Reviewer: Indusdoc
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great ideas, slow at times
Review: I love stuff by the old masters (Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov) and some of Scalzi’s work. Barry Longyear’s “enemy mine” makes me cry every time I read it. I gave you the background so you can decide if I represent your particular tastes or not. Dennis does come up with some pretty good hardcore science fiction concepts, which I admire him for. The book was a little slow at times, the story meanders while describing the chase in Heaven’s River and I almost gave up at times. However, it starts and ends well, and in summary it was certainly worth reading once.
Reviewer: Thiago Macieira
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Thoroughly enjoyable hard sci-fi
Review: With a dash of transhumanism, since the protagonist characters aren’t biological any more.This book is the continuation of the first three, which concluded a story arc and seemed to be the end. With this one, the author reopens the Bobiverse for us. We follow the Bobs through their less-than-professional way of doing things as they clandestinely board an alien topopolis and interact with their inhabitants, some of which are convinced that the Heaven’s River is the whole universe. Meanwhile, the Bobs have internal strife and a looming clash with the biological humanity comes to a head. Along with the aliens from the first trilogy, there’s surely more to look for in the next books.Like the previous series, the author has researched physics and engineering really well. Aside from the single Clarketech that makes the story possible, everything is believable even to our current understanding of materials and science. That lets us explore along the author what the possibilities are for Humanity: transhumanism, megaengineering, interstellar colonisation, coexistence with aliens, etc. He does also bring up some of the current problems in our understanding of the Universe, like the Great Silence and the Fermi Paradox (I suppose that was inevitable as he had Isaac Arthur for a consultant, someone whose YouTube channel I also enjoy).Unlike the previous trilogy, this book spans only about a year of time. The viewpoint shifts across multiple star systems, but everything is real time and linear. That means we lose one of the characteristic writing styles of the first trilogy, which was the jumping around through time, which forced the reader to keep track of who was were and how much time had elapsed since. That was challenging, so this much is now much easier to read, which I hope means the audience can be bigger because the author deserves it.The book is also covered with trivia related to current sci-fi. Nothing that will take away if you don’t know them, but like in Futurama, it’ll make your reading that much more enjoyable if you do get the references. What I didn’t expect were the references to Craig Allanson’s Expeditionary Force series (check it out if you haven’t yet). I guess the author is a fan, which the author and I have similar tastes. I can only approve.PS: with 10000 Bobs, surely they must have run out of unique names, right? Though don’t call them Shirley.
Reviewer: rodell22
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great book
Review: Just like the other books in the series, it was extremely well written. I hope he adds to the series.
Reviewer: Chris Wells
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A must read series!
Review: Book four of the Bobiverse series is a fantastic installment in the series and is a must read for any science fiction fan. You won’t be able to stop reading once you start!!
Reviewer: DM
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Read it voraciously, i encourage you to plunge in the bobiverse.
Reviewer: Andre Caldas
Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I loved the previous books, but couldnât finish this one. After the initial chapters the author got lost in unecessary descriptions and boring plots.
Reviewer: HeadphoneReviewer121
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Truly a tour de force, fitting denouement to the series, kept me turning pages, brilliant world building, thoughtful moral challenges, enough action but no gratuitous violence. Well worth a read.
Reviewer: Giovanni P.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Consigliatissimo
Reviewer: M. W. Broscheit
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: âDer Weltraum, unendliche Weiten.” ist eigentlich das Motto der bekannten TV-Serie und in dem Roman gibt es viele Anspielungen auf diese und andere SciFi Werke. Ansonsten hält dieser Roman das Versprechen, was der neueste Ableger von Star Trek macht. Fremde Welten, Kulturen und Geheimnisse, Intrigen und das Ganze in einem in weiten Teilen physikalisch korrekt dargestellten Universum.Ich hoffe auf eine Fortsetzung.
