Tildes Book Club Discussion - November 2025 - We are Legion (We are Bob) by Dennis Taylor
This is the twentieth of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing We are Legion (We are Bob) by Dennis Taylor. This is the final book discussion for the year. We will start again in January with Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bissen.
I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.
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Well, that was unlike anything we've read so far. How to even describe it? Fun. Irreverent. Occasionally sardonic.
The beginning lulls you in. The first chapters feel normal enough, with the story being grounded in our world. The titular Bob visits a scifi convention - surely the most fun you can have in Vegas! - and gets a timely lesson on Von Neumann probes. We start to learn about the company he's founded, his investors, and his friends and coworkers. Just as it seems we're getting a lay of the land - boom! - we wake up in an ultra-right-wing dystopia.
So that was the first sign this book is different. It's definitely an interesting setting, and I actually wish we'd gotten to learn a little more about it before things got so explodey on Earth. A theocratic revolution is not something I see explored very often in scifi. I was intrigued by the talk of different factions, espionage, and state-sponsored assassinations.
In the next chapters, Bob is introduced to something that might be described as a video game tutorial. He learns to control his new mechanical limbs and the office Roombas. He's apparently been entered into a competition for his very life. Though this storyline doesn't really go anywhere, as he handily beats out his opponents and we never actually get to meet them. I'm hoping this plot point will be revisited in the sequels, as it felt like some lost potential.
Doc Landers reveals that sending Bob to space is humanity's last, best hope. Things are already too far gone on Earth. So the launch date arrives, the word "missile" is uttered, and Bob slams the accelerator down as he shoots off in his new rocket-home. This spells the end for Earth, but the beginning for Bob as we enter the space age.
I quite liked this section of the book. It seemed like the part that the author was most excited to write about, and was now happy to be past all the obligatory backstory. The pacing was slowed to allow some room for introspection. I enjoyed Bob's coming to terms with the new reality, and the problem solving required in these early space chapters.
The moments given to mental health also seemed a nice touch. Bob's toying with removing the endocrine controls reminded me a lot of the DCS from Elder Race. It had a similar message about not being able to put emotions off forever.
Similarly, the VR environment offered a nice window into Bob's personality. First the one, then many. The different environments helped reflect the individuality of those in the collective. It also let us measure time in a more concrete way, as the construct progressively improved over time. What began as a basic avatar ends with a sophisticated and even networked game of baseball.
The pace starts to pick up as Bob begins to multiply. One of the Bobs decides to enter politics. Another becomes an anthropologist (though not a very good one). Soon, his clones begin reproducing further, at which point I started having trouble keeping them all straight.
Soon, new worlds are reached and new technologies discovered. The Bobiverse is formed as FTL communication becomes possible. At this point, the time jumps between chapters start skipping decades at a time. Bob begins to question the ethical implications of his own spreading out to the stars, and I have to agree. Is this really ensuring the continuation of the human race, or something more akin to the spread of a virus?
By the book's conclusion, the remaining pockets of humanity are safe(r), the Deltans are highly contaminated, and the Bobs are ready to start seriously colonizing nearby star systems. We have hints of hostile alien life, and there's at least one Brazilian probe lurking in the vicinity.
Yep, it's safe to say that I'm hooked for the sequels. For as wild and frenetic as this book was, I found it very enjoyable. It was a page-turner that got me invested in a wisecracking nerd-cum-spaceship, and I can't wait to see what happens next.
This book was really a hodgepodge of different ideas, themes, and even genres. The setting switches between the modern day, dystopian fiction, and nautical space battles. Sometimes it utilizes real-world physics to calculate orbital mechanics, while other times it invents new physics and just rolls with it. There are elements of "competency porn" mixed with smatterings of buffoonery (thanks Homer). Despite it all though, it remains fun throughout.
I had a good time with this one. I can't say that all of the humour landed for me, but it definitely had more hits than misses, and it's one of the few books that has really made me laugh.
I listened to the audiobook, narrated by by the excellent Ray Porter, and I'll likely continue the series the same way.
I was also hooked by the story. I found a stopping point at the end of book three, but there are still more out there.
It's been a long time since I've read this book, but what it left impressed on my mind was that our thoughts are an interesting thing. I know this isn't a unique thought, but what makes us "us"? If it is anything which is replicable, does that make us any less of an individual?
It reminds me a bit of the old transporter idea - that to teleport/transport anything, you must destroy the original and produce a copy of it in a new place. Does that make it the new original? Does it mean the destroyed one dies? What does this mean in terms of being a defined "individual"?
Would you undergo the same form of immortality?
I've actually thought about this a surprising amount over the years, even before reading Bobiverse. Well over a decade ago I actually even made a scifi TTRPG game setting/system with a buddy of mine that had body transfers and mind backup/restoration as major components to it. And given the same opportunity in real life, I would absolutely take it, even if it meant death to my original "self" and resulted in a mind clone that gets to live on in my place.
One of the things I hate most about life is how short it is, how I won't have time to learn everything I want to learn, consume all the media I want to consume, and won't get a chance to see where humanity goes in another 100-1k-10k+ years. So if I could give the gift of being free from those limitations, even to a mind clone of myself, I would take that opportunity without hesitation.
Are you familiar with the Mortal Passage trilogy?
Also House of Suns by Alistair Reynolds?
I did a dive into r /printsf while working on generating questions and those titles came up in discussion of work with a similar premise.
Oooh, no, I haven't but they sound right up my alley. Thanks for bringing them to my attention. Added both to my read list!
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Would you call this book hard science fiction, science fantasy, space opera, military science fiction, other?
I would call it philosophical fiction with the veneer of science to make it plausible. The author presented a few age-old thought experiments and put them into space.
I'd call it science fantasy, because of the engineering coordination problems involved in real megaprojects. Even with limited AIs, drones, nanites, FTL communications, and all the other technological tools, "specialist" Bobs, long time spans, etc., you'll have difficulty convincing me that the narrow perspective evinced will solve everything. It got a hair more plausible as the Bobs reconnected with humanity and brought in outside expertise in biology, gigastructures, and other fields, then started asking questions about what other sentients might want.
What do you think about how space combat was handled?
I thought the space combat was pretty good, but I was frustrated by how much trouble he had fighting on the alien planet. He has the tech and resources to build self replicating star ships, but had trouble with some big gorillas?
I thought the gorilla problem was more an issue of logistics, timing and not having planned for the problem but I might have missed something,
Edit
Also they did debate going harder against the gorillas but chose instead evolutionary pressure against aggressive gorillas that attacked deltans
Bob was operating under the self-imposed restriction that he shouldn't wholly deprive the Deltans of agency over their own cultural and technological development. It's spelled out that he didn't want to assume the role of a deity, and only intervened because the Deltans were at risk of extinction otherwise.
I thought Bob operating under limitations made for a much more interesting story than godlike lack of constraints - slinging planets around, etc.
Did this book match your expectations? What if anything surprised you?
I came in knowing that this book was popular, and I had heard that it wasn't the most "serious" of books, with it having some comedy as well.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and found it was a very enjoyable read that I kept wanting to come back to see what happened next. There were some slow parts here and there, but it was overall a page turner.
I thought how he handled the copying process not being exact for each replication of the original replicant added some variety and interest to the series, since I thought before he started making more copies that he would essentially have a ton of carbon copies of himself running around.
If you were a replicant, in Bob's situation, what names do you think would be chosen by your first few clones?
What do you think about how the author handled artificial consciousness?
What did you think about the story's set up, the introduction and training sections?
Did this book give you what you look for in science fiction? Why or why not?
Bobiverse is exactly the sort the sort of science fiction that I gravitate towards most (which is why I recommended it for book club); @Hobofarmer described it best already, "philosophical fiction with the veneer of science to make it plausible."
I do still read a fair amount of shallower scifi too, stuff that is focused purely on futuristic wars, or encountering hostile alien lifeforms on distant planets, or whatever. But it's the scifi that gets me thinking seriously about my own existence, questioning my own values and the ethical implications of future technologies, and imagining the potential for humanity in the near or far future, that I love most. And Bobiverse ticks all those boxes, IMO.
What question would you like to ask other Tildes users about this book?
Was anyone able to find an audiobook copy that wasn't Audible? I'm really surprised by how difficult it's been to get my hands on a copy without going through Amazon. The one used copy I found was a hardcover for $30. I wouldn't say that Powell's failed me for the first time, but that's pretty high.
I initially thought this was an old series, I've had difficulty finding copies of some science fiction from the 70's that didn't gain wide popularity. However, this came out in 2016.
It's an audible exclusive and the ebook is published under an Amazon exclusive license. Other countries or the high seas would be the only real alternative options.
Basically no one else has the rights to any of it. So then it's just about how many physical books are out there.
Hmph. Using sketchy means to get a book by an author who is still alive isn't on my list of things to do.
Not my preference either, I get it.
It's an Audible Exclusive, and the rest of the series is tied deeply into Amazon, so it's going to be a little difficult unless you can find a second hand CD from Brilliance Audio or use other dubious means.
I found this paperback, with only one left. https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/we-are-legion-we-are-bob_dennis-e--taylor/13744394/all-editions/?resultid=c2ff5a92-de63-4263-b66b-f17d552e4727
Looks like someone else grabbed it first. Enjoy, whoever you are!
Anyone read the sequels? Would you recommend them?
If you liked this one and want the stakes raised, the other two in this trilogy are alright in a sort of junk food, watch them solve problems sort of way. The ones after those are a bit more interesting in that lots of time have passed and not all the Bobs are on the same page as one another, so the storytelling gets a little more complicated.
The later parts of the book were episodic. Was there a section you thought was especially well done? Poorly done?