For We Are Many
Review
For We Are Many is the second book in the Bobiverse series. It focuses on the Others storyline while also continuing many of the side stories begun in We Are Legion (We Are Bob).
For We Are Many picks up right where We Are Legion (We Are Bob) left off. It adds a few new stories while also continuing some of the old ones. Here are a few I liked:
- The advancement of the Deltans, the discovery of a new predator, and the banishment of Bawbe.
- The suicide of Homer and the destruction of VEHEMENT.
- Henry, the Australian probe who’d rather be sailing.
- Further battles with the now upgraded Brazilian probes.
- Colonizing the first non-Earth worlds.
- The reveal of the Others, and the first crushing defeat of the Bobs.
For We Are Many held my interest even though each storyline is simple and straightforward. This surprised me, because being able to predict the shape of a story after only reading a few pages is one of my top annoyances. Reading predictable books feels like slogging through words, and it’s one of the things I didn’t like about Flowers for Algernon. But because the Bobiverse moves so fast and has so many stories, I couldn’t predict the path of the narrative even though I could for each piece. In that way, it felt like a (much less complicated) Pandora’s Star.
There is another way in which the Bobiverse and the Commonwealth Saga are similar: both make heavy use of memory backups to cheat death. However, each takes a different views of what it means. In the Commonwealth universe, a backup is as good as the original you (even if multiple of them can run around at the same time, as in Night Without Stars). Bob, on the other hand, does not consider a backup to be himself, but a new being that shares the same memories. Bob’s point of view makes sense because backups are how he makes new probes, and those are clearly “different people”.
I love the continued fast pace and the higher stakes the Others bring to For We Are Many. I can’t wait to start All These Worlds.