There's a reason We Are Legion (We Are Bob) was named Audible's Best Science Fiction Book of 2016: Its irresistibly irreverent wit! Bob Johansson has just sold his software company for a small fortune and is looking forward to a life of leisure. The first item on his to-do list: Spending his newfound windfall. On an urge to splurge, he signs up to have his head cryogenically preserved in case of death. Then he gets himself killed crossing the street. Waking up 117 years later, Bob discovers his mind has been uploaded into a sentient space probe with the ability to replicate itself. Bob and his clones are on a mission to find new homes for humanity and boldly go where no Bob has gone before.

Dennis E. Taylor’s hilarious novel sets the stage for the magnificent performance of Ray Porter, who revels in the brave new world of corpsicles, artificial intelligence, interstellar space probes, and space colonization in tantalizing detail.

We Are Legion (We Are Bob) is the first installment in the blockbuster Audible Original Bobiverse series - which has sold more than one million copies.

Listening Length

9 hours and 56 minutes
Author

Dennis E. Taylor
Narrator

Ray Porter
Audible release date

20 September 2016
Language

English
Publisher

Audible Originals
ASIN

B01L084PTC
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	9 hours and 56 minutes
Author	Dennis E. Taylor
Narrator	Ray Porter
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com.au Release Date	20 September 2016
Publisher	Audible Originals
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B01L084PTC
Best Sellers Rank	196 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) 1 in Alien Invasion Science Fiction 1 in First Contact Science Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) 2 in Hard Science Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

5 star		62%
4 star		27%
3 star		8%
2 star		1%
1 star		1%

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Top reviews from Australia

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Christian Todd

great story

Reviewed in Australia on 3 December 2021

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2nd time I have read this book. Still a great story. The author does a great job of interweaving the different Bob’s and their individual but linked stories

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The Bobiverse

Reviewed in Australia on 5 October 2018

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We listened to the whole series of three books while travelling the Australian outback for a month. The books kept us intrigued and the narration was superb. I thoroughly recommend this series to anyone who loves a good yarn with some suspense and some humour thrown in for good measure. We only wish there were more books in the series.

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David

Worth a read.Yes.

Reviewed in Australia on 20 March 2022

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Worth a look fa sure.A few lol moments.Looking forward to the rest of the series.Can be confusing but that just makes us think.Thanks to the author for this fun read.

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Aussie.Abroad

Thoroughly enjoyable

Reviewed in Australia on 30 June 2020

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Five stAr read. Best book I have read in a long time. There are no comparative books I thought initially hitch hikers guide but no. This book stands alone and I am already going to purchase the next one.

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HillTree

Great and different!

Reviewed in Australia on 6 November 2016

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Ever wondered what it would be like to come back as a computer in a space ship, and have backups so you are immortal. Well here you have it answered for you. Drags a little in the middle but has different angles playing out, so whatever your bag theres something to keep your interest. Love the idea. More please...

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N. Hill

Excellent and funny

Reviewed in Australia on 26 May 2019

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A fantastic job by the narrator really brings the Bobs to life. I’m definitely going to invest in the rest of the series, probably in Audiobook format just because the narration complements the author’s writing so well.

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Kindle Customer

Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Reviewed in Australia on 27 September 2020

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A fairly light easy read which doesn't take itself too seriously and kept me turning pages to the very end. Unlike many "Book 1 of ..." these days it was a decent length and did not just abruptly stop half way through the story, but left me quite sated yet keen to read the next.

One person found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

A great read

Reviewed in Australia on 25 May 2020

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Not too serious not too unrealistic. It has a good balance and begins it's sci-fi journey where most ends. It is an amazing start to a series. Bought sexond book. It's a no-brainer

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Top reviews from other countries

coldwater kayaker

At the far end of the curve

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 March 2020

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When I read a new book my feelings probably follow a normal distribution curve; at one end are the few books that I finish & could happily look forward to reading again as they've been so enjoyable (interesting, good character development, well written, evoke a vision of the scene, clever, etc.) at the other end are the few books I get to the point that I can't even finish it to see what happens because they are sooooo bad.

This book came close to being closed unfinished (I was able to finish with some effort). It probably appeals to those who like real pulp science fiction with unrealistic science. Spoiler alert from now on as some of the plot is revealed.

We go from a software developer who is reincarnated as computer software to run a spaceship and is able to develop scientific advances at lightning speed using the whole of earth science which has been uploaded to his spaceship along with nano bots and other AI. Creates computer clones of himself some of which go on to find "first contact" (he's a Trekkie fan. And others who go back to Earth just in time to save what's left of humanity at the last gasp.

Just to cliched, not that well written, etc. I expect many who gave this the high rating will not be pleased with this review but you're all welcome to your views. For me I have no interest in what happens to the Bobs.

7 people found this helpful

Vertigo

Great debut looking, forward to reading the sequel

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 August 2017

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In approximately the present day Bob has just struck it rich through the sale of his software company for an exorbitant fee. Revelling in his unfamiliar new found wealth, Bob has signed up to have his head cryogenically frozen in the event of his death, and shortly thereafter, before he has had a chance to really get down to enjoying that new found wealth, he find himself rather abruptly dead. On awakening he discovers that he has not, as he might have hoped, had his brain placed in a nice newly grown body but instead it has been destructively scanned and loaded into a computer matrix. He also finds that, as a ‘replicant,’ he has no rights and is owned by the state, destined to be the controlling intelligence in an interstellar von Neumann probe (hence the eventual “we are legion” of the title). Fortunately, being a consummate geek, this is not actually such very bad news for him!

As a debut novel (as I believe this to be) We Are Legion is exceptional; it is confidently written and the flowing prose is remarkably easy to read especially for a book that is, at its core, a pretty hard science based story. In fact I would make a strong comparison with Andy Wier’s The Martian; the content is completely different but the style is, in many ways, very similar. Both are debut novels, both are self-confessed geeky stories, neither are comedies though both are filled with snarky, geeky humour with many references to present day pop culture – Star Trek, Star Wars, The Simpsons etc., etc. – and both manage to hold the reader’s attention despite much of the dialogue actually being internal monologue. Its three hundred and twenty pages passed, for me, in the blink of an eye. That humour keeps the read light and easy but don’t be lulled into thinking all the topics are going to be light and easy; they aren’t. Taylor unflinchingly and somewhat acerbically addresses the insanity so often manifested when humans replace humanity with politics; the craziness so often portrayed in We Are Legion is, sadly, all too plausible.

I so often complain about the poor editing I encounter, particularly in debut or self-published novels, and so it is with great pleasure that I found the almost complete absence of such problems here. It just shows that it can be done if the author and editor take the time to do it right. My compliments to both (I am assuming it wasn’t self-edited).

My only complaint is that Taylor is not brilliant at smooth endings. Many chapters ended very abruptly and the final end of the book felt more like just another chapter ending. There is no real conclusion to any of the threads; everything is pretty much left hanging making this feel more like the end of one part of a long book rather than the end of one book in a trilogy. But, as the next book is already published and the third will be out shortly, that is not as much of a problem as it might have been, and I will certainly be continuing with those two before too long.

21 people found this helpful

MarcE

Great characters, good (but not overdone) humour, just plain fun to read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 November 2017

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I listened to this in it's audiobook form which was excellent (the narration was superb) and I was drawn in from the first few minutes. I'm a geek anyway and the eponymous "Bob" is a character containing so many of my own character traits (and flaws) that the book could have been written for me, which may explain my liking for the series.

Our cynical, slightly sarcastic but ultimately human hero "Bob" is coerced / drafted / not given much choice into saving the world by heading out into the stars to find another one. Along the way we get space exploration, aliens and quite a few surprises.

The quality of the writing is excellent, either Mr Taylor has a natural talent or the help of a good editor. The chapters flowed quite naturally, the dialog wasn't jarring and I just found this book fun to read (well, listen to). It had me looking forward to my commute so I could see what Bob was going to do next!

12 people found this helpful

Herr Holz Paul

Good Hard Sci-fi

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 December 2017

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This is fairly straight forward hard Sci-fi with no extraordinary leaps of imagination into strange fantasy worlds. The idea of a human mind being frozen and then later installed as an AI is intriguing. Bob spends some time in the lab undergoing training for command of a mission in space while he adjusts to his new existence. This scenario later becomes more complex when Bob creates further copies of himself in order to expand the mission. There is a sense of relief as a camaraderie between these new AIs develops bringing Bob`s solitude to an end. The humanity from which this AI is derived is expressed through VR as each new version creates his own imaginary identity and habitat. I like the way Bob v.1 fine tunes the virtual taste of his coffee until it is just right! One advantage of using AI as characters is that they can set a task, for example building a new ship, (with autonomous 3D printers), which might take five years to build, but the AI does not experience time in the same way as a human, so could in theory shut itself down for those five years, or spend the time on other tasks. This frees the author to multitask in various projects in a kind of `flexitime`. The biological clock so pervasive in our lives becomes irrelevant. The author manages to maintain an optimistic overtone despite the apparent wars back on Earth. Even if mankind were to be wiped out before their move into space, our humour and emotional life could be preserved in AI and for me this is a highlight of this book. It is also interesting to see how Bob takes control when faced with trying to save the remaining inhabitants on Earth, expressing a calm rationality amidst all the bickering humans.

7 people found this helpful

Jarrak

An Absolute Delight

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 August 2021

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Bob Johansson is a wealthy man having just sold his company InterGator Software for a rather large amount of money, his closest friends have benefitted from the sale and feeling good about himself Bob signs up to be cryo-frozen upon his death. As luck would have it the money was wisely invested as decades later he awakes to find himself well not human anymore but certainly alive and conscious which is more than can be said for 99.9999% of his compatriots. However the USA and world has changed rather drastically during the intervening years, his personal wealth was taken by the state and his humanity no longer recognised, in other words Bob is now the property of a corporation who have plans for Bob. Now this a review which I could go full spoiler on but I don't want to because I have to seriously recommend this novel, it's not hard scifi but there is plenty to think about in terms of big picture and the future of space exploration. However seeing the future unfold through the eyes of Bob is both fascinating and compelling as all manner of obstacles are encountered as the galaxy is explored and yet Bob is still the 21st century guy he was when he was "alive" so humour we can all recognise is at the heart of the novel. The second novel "For We Are Many" is sitting on my kindle ready to read.

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