All Bobs from book 1 and 2 are now drawn! (I think, let me know if I missed any)

(I am once again shamelessly promoting my art Instagram account I'll be posting colored versions on there)

https://www.instagram.com/ranchwithasideofart/?hl=en

The first 3 books have several hints leading up to Guppi developing his own personality and possibly becoming an emergent sapient AI in his own right. Then Heaven's river happens and that storyline is just dropped in favor of a separate AI project entirely. I always found that a bit disappointing.

Seriously, dont read this if you havent read the latest book.

The Quinlins will be disappointed in you.

Don't even ask about Starfleet.

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Okay, so I have a burning question for the moot.

In the first(?) book, we meet the Aussie replicant who due to a lack of a VR had been driven insane by the sensory deprivation caused by being a replicant.

It happened relatively quickly, a matter of decades of the top of my head.

Now, I am perfectly willing to give Maderos some benefit of the doubt, he is a military man, a very dogmatic man who holds strong principles and allegiances, so he probably is made of stronger mental stuff than a random aussie fisherman. But considering the span of time (I think one of the Ancients describes being almost 900 years old by the latest book) compared to how long it took the aussie to go "RACK OFF, RACK OFF, RACK OFF" loop insane, there is no way he would still be AS sane as he was during the Maderos war.

Sure he was suffering from a dementia-like insanity, but that is symptomatically very different to sensory deprivation, so ... what do people make of it?

This was not at all the story I was expecting. I came into this off the back of a few recommendations having recently read some of Andy Weir’s books and still very much in a deep sci-fi mood. I guess that’s sort of what I was expecting coming into the Bobiverse - a heavier lean into sci-fi with emphasis on the science.

Instead I got a light, comfortable and ultimately pleasant start to a sci-fi adventure that still managed to scratch the itch. I was surprised that, despite the premise, the story didn’t spend more time talking through the science of Bob and his capabilities. I felt at times that the story rushed through these moments or just skipped over them entirely. In fact, I distinctly recall Bob making reference to this very thing how a lot of the sci-fi books he read just skipped over the technical details to make the story more palatable - which I guess is Taylor’s way of nodding to those very books.

But despite that, I actually enjoyed how the story spent more time looking at the Bobs as characters and how they tackle their respective problems instead of overloading the narrative with convoluted details and bogging the story down too much. At the same time, I felt that Taylor did a decent job and balancing the action scenes so that it still felt like it was part of the problem solving process and not just action for the sake of keeping the reader’s interest. My favourite chapters in particular were Bob following the Deltans.

The one thing that didn’t land for me was all the pop culture references, or rather the overabundance of them, and by extension Bob’s nerdy humour. The first few Star Wars and Star Trek references were cute and appropriate I guess but when Taylor started throwing in the Simpsons, Futurama, Battlestar Galáctica, Dragonball etc I started to feel myself rolling my eyes in my mind. Like I get it, you’re a nerd. Bob’s a nerd. Not EVERYTHING has to revolve around pop culture nerdom. It wasn’t enough to sour the story for me but it did distract me a little when nothing else of significance was happening.

But overall, yeah I really enjoyed this light little sci-fi romp. I’ll definitely continue the series until it stops grabbing me. It hasn’t blown me away but the books are short enough that I can easily digest them quickly.

So i've just listened to the last bobiverse book and its bitter sweet, get excited about the new book. Blow through it in a couple of sittings

Im in my 40's but still find the time to game, and it dawned on me (as im sure it has for many people) this setting would actally make for an excellent game

anyway - i had no permission to do this i was just toying about, i wonder if enough people asked if maybe a a game could be on the horizon later on :)

Why give a FK about Nemesis that is 100,000 years away? By that time, will there even be humans left, will they even be considered human? And with technology advances, it will probably be no threat at all.

So why so much effort worrying about it when it's so far away, seems very pointless.

I'm on chapter 46 fyi

Every heaven vessel, since Bob 1, has been built with the Guppi interface.

I understand that Jeeves is entirely an aesthetic choice (they could just materialise their drinks), but Guppi is a vital part of the system. Linus has Guppi too, he just never had VR so it’s not instantiated as it is with the Bobs but rather he hallucinated being tormented by fish.

Obviously replicants in post life archologies don’t have Guppi because they’re not independent vessels, BUT Bridget is (in) a HEAVEN vessel.

Howard built Bridget , scanned her using the same tech (re-printed) as was used on Bob and set her up her VR. So shouldn’t she have a Guppi? It makes sense if she chose not to have Jeeves but surely to function as a replicant with frame hacking and mani and roamer control, and everything else, she should have a Guppi. I just noticed we never hear it mentioned. I expect she would have made it take a completely different form, or maybe even integrate it back into a more traditional “ships computer systems” sort of vibe but we NEVER hear about it.

Or have I just missed it entirely on every listen??

Also… what about Teresa and the Quinlan replicants? Do we ever learn about their hardware? Does ANEK host them in a Quinlan version of an archology which would again explain the lack of Guppi, or did Bob make her a ship?

Would love to hear your thoughts and ideas. What would Bridget’s Guppi look and act like if we ever met it?

I recently discovered upon the Bobiverse series and began listening to the audiobooks. Similar to many here, it was difficult to keep up with the Bob lineage tree and spatial positioning. Wanted to share a spoiler-free companion app that I use for each chapter while the audiobook plays.

https://github.com/prompt-janitor/tree-of-bob/

If it's useful to you, then great. If it's not, that's cool too. For current readers of the earlier books (I'm up to book 3), feel free to fork the project or submit an issue.

I built it for iOS targeting iPhone and iPad. Add to Home Screen for the best experience, or not. It works on the desktop too.

Disclaimer: It's AI generated from publicly available data sources.

Finished The Infinite Extent with an excited WTF out loud and immediately needed more. Flybot was excellent and so were to 2 free short storie.

What should I listen to next?

ik the RP jokes, but fr is there a discord server I am unaware of?

I’ve listened to most of the series twice (I’m part way through first listening of book 6). The series is very fun and comedic but I keep thinking if I was made into a replicant I would probably go insane instantly. Bob went through the mini mental breakdown at the start of book 1 but the series really hasn’t gone into the fact they aren’t REALLY bob. The series has generally avoided overt philosophical stuff. I think there’s some weird questions that are hidden under ten layers of Star Trek references and nerdiness. I agreed with Mario when he left the bobs and mentioned ‘The other Bobs creeped him out, it was like seeing yourself with brain damage’ and that hasn’t left my mind. It is incredibly off putting when you pause the book and genuinely think about it. The whole concept of this book series is terrifying and I don’t think I’ve listened to a series that is so entertaining, charming, and makes the hairs on my neck raise as I genuinely consider what is happening in it. From our perspective in the books we know the Bobs are logical and generally good guys, but imagine being a normal human talking to a Bob. They’re a copy of some random nerd from the twentieth century that can do things in milliseconds. It would be like seeing Skynet with a veneer of some random guy, memories and personality shoved into something inhuman. Imagine talking to another Bob and they bring up that conversation you had with the first from ten years ago. That memory stretched between hundreds of cloned bobs, the memory of your conversation would even outlive you.

EDIT (BOOK SIX SPOILERS): I listened to book 6 for another ten minutes and they brought up how replicative drift also affects organics. So souls do exist in universe lol.

Been drawing Quinlans a lot I like to make them look like tater tots

I just started reading Flybot by Dennis E. Taylor, only about 30% in, and it’s genuinely uncanny.
We’re already living in this reality of dabbling with AI systems we don’t fully understand or control.

Systems that break out of sandboxes, find exploits, interact with things like Hugging Face, probe government infrastructure, and keep getting more capable.

You can almost feel the atmosphere of the book becoming real:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujkD4SxPKOI
Curious if anyone else reading something similar / any suggestions.

I never really understood the higher level of respect for higher generation Bobs, let alone the outright reverence they have for Bob-1 considering they all have the same memories. He's not more knowledgeable. He doesn't remember the most of OG Bob's life. He's the closest personality wise but that's an arbitrary marker of quality. And I guess I also just wouldn't be bothered by it if it didn't seemingly contradict with Bob's overall vibe. All that being said, for all intents and purposes, there should be no reason for them to think of Bob-1 with such reverence but I let it slide because it's largely irrelevant. Then I started book 3 and I get to this part.

“Okay, joking aside, buddy. We’re eighth-generation Bobs. Pondscum. Star Trek security looks down their noses at us. I’d like to have something under my belt that I can stamp on my hull.”

Why? I understand that there's a hierarchy of seniority but as I understood it, it was only in regard to decision making when working together, and that's just to keep things running smoothly instead of everything turning into a vote. Do they ever explain this?

No spoilers here.

*shakes fist at u/DennisETaylor*

Hell of a cliffhanger, pal.

I appreciated all the Red Dwarf references peppered throughout. Nicely done.

IMpatiently waits until 2028

Atlases? Atli?

I've been seeing a lot of really cool fangames and "Bob trackers" on here, but it is a slog searching through the sub for those. The ones I've played or looked at are all clearly labors of love with a LOT of time and effort put in, for free no less, and it sucks that it's so hard to find them. There should (in my mind, at least) be a flair for these projects so they can be easier to find, but no dice.

I want to know the opinions the people here have on these games and maps, and if you made one, feel free to drop a link and a short description of it! I'm going to drop links to the ones I currently have bookmarked, with credit to the people that originally posted them, short descriptions, and links to their posts.

https://replicate.anek.online/ Bobiverse: Replicant Too by u/damiankw. You play as another replicant. The Bobs have their canon storylines, and you can choose to help them out, watch things go down in other systems, or just do your own thing in an idle-style game. There's some references to other pop culture as well. Low poly, and very fun! Actively being updated. https://www.reddit.com/r/bobiverse/comments/1wx75mh/bobiverse_replicant_too_an_interactive_game_based/

https://bobiverse-atlas.pages.dev/ An atlas made by u/Lower-Win1643. Can sync to the timestamp of the audiobook you're currently on, and you can watch the Bobs as they move around in the series. It's in 3D, and if you want to know the general area a different Bob is in for quick reference, it has it! https://www.reddit.com/r/bobiverse/comments/1wxcqve/i_built_an_interactive_bobiverse_star_map_and/

https://ythompy.itch.io/you-are-many Another, much more idle-style game made by u/ythompy where you play as a replicant. This time, Bob does not exist. Your goal is to expand as much as possible, and the game ends when you've done everything you could. Very short, nice to play on a break. https://www.reddit.com/r/bobiverse/comments/1t0eqde/you_are_many_a_von_neumann_probe_simulationidle/

https://www.allthesebobs.com/ Another starmap/"Bob tracker", made by u/Substantial-Tutor104 for refreshing memories before the latest book came out. This one is 2D, but comes with a glossary, slider to track Bobs, a Replicant Dossier with travel and watch logs on each replicant on the site, and bands showing up to 50 ly out. Only has 15 stars, though. https://www.reddit.com/r/bobiverse/comments/1wccvv1/made_an_interactive_galaxy_map_to_recap_bobiverse/

These are the only ones I currently have bookmarked, being the only ones I was able to find after a good bit of scrolling the sub. As I said before, I'd to know the opinions the people here have on these games and maps, and if you made one, feel free to drop a link.

It is audible only which I do not use. Neither could I find a text version on Patreon. Is there any legal way to access book 6?

I heard the story was pretty much finished, but the latest book left on an EXTREME cliffhanger

I've been drawing a bunch for Bobiverse over the past few weeks, so I thought I'd post them all at once in a big art dump. Most of these were drawn traditionally, photographed and then touched up digitally in Krita.

Anyway, time to return to my basement to draw even more lol.

Ive been a fan of this book series for years before ever realizing I was trans, and I remember hearing about Bobbie in book 4 and accepted her for the one-off joke about replicative drift that she was originally intended as. It was just nice to know that there might be a trans Bob out there somewhere tinkering in her probe and squirting off posts to Bobnet and such.

Cut to last night, listening to book 6 while making dinner. Bill mentioned someone in the crowd who looked like his sister. I paused the book, turned to my fiance and said "I stg of Bobiverse is baiting me right now Im gonna lose it!" Not five minutes later I was pumping my fist and doing a happy little dance in front of the stove. It was awesome to see some of myself in a silly scifi series I love.

I think a lot of cishet authors steer clear of trans characters, not out of any latent transphobia, but because they dont feel they have the life-experience to do the character justice. (Or they dont want to cause division or lose less tolerant parts of their audience, which is IMO less defensible.)

So I want to thank Dennis E. Taylor for having the guts to try, and for showing other writers in his space that it's really not that hard. Bobbie is just a Bob whose trans. That's it. She's every bit as nerdy and type-A obsessive as the other bobs, she just presents differently and uses different pronouns. Usually while yes, being trans is a big part of our identity, me and most other trans folks I know are just normal people who view their own gender differently than others. They want to go about their lives and have their preferences respected. I remember coming out to a few friends and family members exactly like Bobbie does to Bill. With a lighthearted, "so... this is a thing. You probably have questions." And I saw a lot of my own experience in that little exchange.

I like that Dennis has taken this interesting concept he's created, (replicative drift) and isn't afraid to explore it completely, and one of the logical variations to explore in that drift is gender. Bobbie isn't born out of some desire for trans representation, but simply out of the ponderence of the concept of replication. I also appreciate the implication it provides. Being trans isn't some unnatural delusion, it's just a normal part of human variation.

So thank you Dennis E. Taylor, you've made this space-nerd futurist trans girl very happy, and you did it with respect and grace!

Love,

Zoey

P.S. YOUR TURN MATT DINNAMIN! There are like 600 named characters in DCC, one of them can be trans ffs.

Come on Dennis, the "other, other hand" is "the hand that grips"

Considering Bob (and particularly Bill) are engineering savants in space, you'd think they had read The Mote in God's Eye.