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Tildes Book Club - We are Legion (We are Bob) - How is it going?
We'll be discussing We are Legion at the end of November.
This month, I've been busy and also trying to finish Orbital by Harvey before my loan period finishes. (It's an e-book loan on Libby and I can't get an extension.) So I haven't started quite yet.
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I had a 5 hour trip planned for this weekend so I'm listening to the audiobook. I should be done with it when I get home tonight. This is probably my 4th or 5th listen to this series.
I really like these books, and anything else from Dennis Taylor.
I've somehow already finished this one. It moves quickly, and doesn't overstay its welcome. I enjoyed the book overall. I saved some notes so I can stay fresh for the final discussion.
I was tempted to start on the second book immediately, but was afraid I might accidentally drop a spoiler in the discussion thread. So for now I've returned to the series I was previously reading, Delta-V by Daniel Suarez.
Looking forward to the final discussion.
Read this one before, and the author has a very particular way of writing group conflict and smart people doing smart things that started to wear on me a little. He gets better at it in later books with more characters to bounce off one another, but it’s a little rough in the first book IMO.
Finished We Are Legion today and I definitely have thoughts... that I'll save for the discussion. I found it a quick read and I'm debating starting the next one or finishing R. F. Kuang's Katabasis.
I'm interested in how you're finding katabasis. She's such a good writer but also I don't really "enjoy" the reading if that makes sense. Her books are more of an "oof"
Not finished yet, but I'm not enjoying (?) it as much as Babel. I didn't read any blurbs or book jacket summary before diving in on the strength of her previous work. It's just not exactly my cup of tea right now, which is why I was willing to set it aside and go through the Book Club book instead.
This is normal reading behavior for me, I'll have a half-dozen books in progress at once. It's not a comment on whether I'll finish Katabasis eventually.
I understand the bouncing around book life. I'm in the middle of at least 4 atm
I'm not in or doing Book Club, but thanks everyone for showing me my next series read! This sounds pog. I've got a lot of time left to spend with Vorkosigan but once that's all done, I'll be in the universe of Bob.
I have been reading Vorkosigan for the first time with the Unspoiled podcast! I'm mostly enjoying it, where are you in it?
Hrm. This is a tricky thing to do in an unspoilery way now isn't it.
I'm about 4/5ths of the way through the first omnibus - "Cordelia's Honour"
You?
Ah I'm much further in reading in internal chronological order, around A Civil Campaign. The title of which shouldn't be a spoiler but don't go looking!
I have to say, especially as the person that originally nominated it for the Book Club, I'm genuinely surprised by how much hate this book is receiving already, and this isn't even the discussion topic yet! :( cc: @patience_limited
You're not wrong that it's a Gary Stu-ish character. But given the fact that the fictional, far-future Earth this story takes place on is a war-torn, conflict-ridden, environmentally devastated hellscape dominated by an oppressive fundamentalist Christian theocratic State, I think the "if only people were logical like me" reaction to it by Bob is a rather understandable one. And I suspect that is how most everyone here would react to it as well if awakened to a similar situation.
Regardless, the idiotic Earth politicians part is only a tiny fraction of the story, and the actual meat & potatoes of it (and of the series as a whole) is mostly focused on other things, starting once Bob finally gets to space and leaves most of that nonsense behind... which is when I personally found it the most interesting, imaginative, and enjoyable. And while I don't want to spoil anything about the series, IMO it continues to get more and more interesting as the series progresses and the premise of a sentient Von Neumann probe continues to get expanded upon.
No worries. In retrospect, your frustration towards the book is totally understandable given your background. Whenever I read about IT or computer forensics related stuff in fiction novels, or see it portrayed in shows like CSI, NCIS, etc. I get similarly aggravated by how absurdly unrealistic it is. So I should have recognized where you were coming from without you needing to explain yourself. Still, I appreciate that you cared enough about my feelings to do that. So❤️ right back at ya, and no hard feelings! ;)
Oh, God... I knew what you had linked to even before I clicked it. That NCIS clip is the bane of my existence! :P
You can solve it with this!
I want to toss in my 2 cents just since I commented, and say that the "computer man" vibes are similarly rough for me. Books like this have to ride a line for my tastes. The Martian landed for me, Ready Player One didn't. (I know it's less of a competence porn story but there's a spiritual connection in the "know it all" aspect of the books.) In general I slid right through this book and onto the next with a mild positive feeling. But slowing down and engaging with it definitely leaves me with more criticism.
I, thankfully? Mostly don't have any professional thoughts on it... Or well I probably could given where the story goes but I don't want to. I think I listened to the second one too, or read it maybe? I think my partner will like them more than I do. But I don't think it's trash by any means, just not my fav
Appreciate the 2c. And yeah, I mean, I don't exactly think it's a masterpiece of fiction either. And I get that Bob is a bit of a know-it-all too, which can be a bit annoying at times. But I still thought it was a pretty enjoyable and fun read, so I was rather surprised by how strongly negative some of the reactions were already... especially since this isn't even the discussion topic yet, this is just the check-in. So this all still has me worried that maybe I fucked up somehow by nominating it given how many people here (all of whom I actually respect the opinions of) seem to hate it enough to pop off about it already. :(
And TBH, I kinda felt the same about the super negative reactions to Roadside Picnic too, which is one of the reasons I struggled finding the motivation to continue running more book club events myself. I tend to take it a bit too personally when people hate something I recommended to them, I guess. :(
I get that feeling, I also don't hate the books - I even read more than one. I try to remember it's good for books to inspire feelings and the point of a book club is to have conversation about thoughts and feelings and such I think it's ultimately a good. But it isn't the same as sharing a book you love and having others love it too.
You didn't fuck up IMO.
For what it's worth, I greatly enjoyed both Bob and Roadside. Please keep the recommendations coming. :)
Thanks, that actually does make me feel better. Ditto for what you also said too, @patience_limited and @DefinitelyNotAFae. I really need to work on not taking these kinda things so personally. :/
Good to see you Wes. Looking forward to the discussion.
I'll weigh in that my (perhaps excessively negative) sentiment expression towards We Are Legion was definitely not a judgment about your taste. I adore Roadside Picnic so much that I even ran it past a Russian language grad student of my acquaintance to get a feel for how well it was translated. I'm not sure it would resonate so much with people who haven't read Stanislaw Lem's Solaris (the movies were better than the book, imho) or other Soviet science fiction. But Roadside Picnic is great literature and a seminal work that inspired other important books (e.g. Jeff Vandemeer's Annihilation and the other Southern Reach books.
I work in tech, my day job is in IT, and I agree with you 100%- Reading The Bobiverse felt like I was sitting around the lunch table at work biting my tongue at the discussions.
(I still read all of them, though, because there was a lot of fun to be had in between the teeth-gritting!)
As I said, I'm holding off for the regular discussion thread...
I don't think you're wrong about the Gary Stu problem. I'll admit now that I'm hate-reading to figure out why it's popular because that's among the smaller issues I have with the book.
Ah... Yeah. I tried reading this after a recommendation a year or two ago and also had to put it down, for exactly the reasons you called out here. I'm a little relieved that I'm not the only one, actually haha
I didn't hate it, but I've read a lot of junk food lately so that says very little about how good it is. There were some enjoyable bits.
I read this one last year, hoping to do Poisoner's Handbook this month!
Ditto. I've also read We are Legion, but it was a few years ago so I will probably give it a quick skim again right before the discussion just to refresh my memory about which events actually took place in that first book so I don't accidentally spoil any events from the next books in the series for anyone. And I'm also still not quite finished Poisoner's Handbook either, although I'm 51% of the way through now, and hoping to finish it soon so I can join in that discussion too.
I started on Halloween and was done by the 3rd. I thought it was great, and I'm 37% of the way through the second one in the series now.
I finished the second one today and am getting started on the third :) I understand some of the criticisms of the characterization but this one hasn't rubbed me as wrong as Project Hail Mary did.
Doesn’t seem to be an audiobook on Hoopla or Libby, so I’m likely out this month.
I'm pretty sure all Dennis E. Taylor's audiobooks (not just the Bobiverse ones) are Audible Originals, so they are only available there. IIRC one of the mainline Bobiverse books was even a Kindle Unlimited exclusive for a short while too before eventually getting a wider public release. He apparently had a hell of a hard time actually finding a publisher for We Are Bob so resorted to self-publishing it on Amazon, after which it blew up in popularity, and Amazon has been able to keep him loyal to them ever since.
I will say, because of how this book flows, I think it's one of the harder books to follow via audio. Not saying more due to spoilers but i struggled way more than typical.
I can't even find an ebook version on Libby.
Still working on finishing The Poisoners Handbook, but luckily I just listened to this one over the summer!
Unfortunately it looks like my library doesn’t have the ebook, so not sure if I’ll be able to read it or not. I’m bad at physically going to the library, but I might try to before some travel I have coming up.
finished, and moved on to books two and three. Book three feels like a good stopping point. @cfabbro, this was a good book for me right now. Thanks.
YVW. Nice to know at least some people enjoyed it! :P