Heaven's River (Bobiverse) Paperback – November 24, 2020

Just finished this book. Thoroughly enjoyed it. As with the rest of the Bobiverse books, it combines a good concept with fun, witty writing and just the right amount of science. It's a real shame that the first reviews you'll see trash the book because of the author's decision to give Audible an exclusive release window before publishing the print and Kindle editions. Come on folks, artists deserves to make decisions on how to monetize their work. Anyway, enough of the business side of things, and on to the book ...About twenty pages into this book, I decided I needed to go back and read the first three to refresh my memory of Pavs, the Others, Bob genealogy, who is on which planet, etc. It was fun to go back and start from the beginning, even though I'd seen the ending. This fourth book picks up on the unsolved disappearance of Bender, whose absence persisted in defiance of Chekhov through the first three. Unlike the first three books, which spanned multiple stories across multiple worlds, the action of this fourth book is focused almost exclusively on one world. Of course, Ringworld was also limited to one world, so it's not much of a limitation. As with other books in the series, the writing is sharp, and authentic nerds will catch all kinds of references that zip by without the need for comment (i.e., they'll be missed by non nerds, but that's OK by all of us). This book gets a bit more into the philosophy of artificial life (a theme that was introduced in the first book, but then dispensed with quickly when Bob-1 looked into the abyss and decided "Still Bob"). I credit the author, who has a point of view, for treating the subject in a way that lets readers develop their own. This fourth book is devoid of the space battles that punctuated the first three; honestly, I didn't even notice the missing military sci fi element until I'd finished. The only downside is that I could see the resolution of the central mystery about ten parsecs away (as will anyone who remembers TOS 022). Despite the similarity of premise, the treatment was different enough that I still thoroughly enjoyed the book, and given the role Star Fleet plays in this book, I viewed the similarity as hommage. The last chapter makes it clear that the author plans to continue this series (yeah!) but the book does not end on a cliffhanger (double yeah!).By Book 4, it's hard for an author to write a book that's consistent with but distinct fro the first three. This author accomplishes the task. It's the Bobiverse, all right, but no sharks are jumped.By the way, if you haven't read Bobiverse 1-3, I'd recommend starting from the beginning. It's not strictly necessary, but you'll enjoy the book more if you understand the universe and the characters, so it's worth starting this journey from the headwaters.

The Bobiverse series kept me engaged throughout. Nothing here that will really blow your mind or change your world view, but an interesting and fun read that I enjoyed. The final book was a great wrapup to the series.My biggest complaint about these books is that the Bobs don't always seem so bright. A lot of situations that catch them off guard seem pretty obvious from the start. Also, don't expect different cultural viewpoints here. There are other series that do that well. This is not one of them.

Great stories - plenty of science - at least science fiction, and enough pace to keep it interesting- would continue the next episode as soon as it’s available

With a dash of transhumanism, since the protagonist characters aren't biological any more.This book is the continuation of the first three, which concluded a story arc and seemed to be the end. With this one, the author reopens the Bobiverse for us. We follow the Bobs through their less-than-professional way of doing things as they clandestinely board an alien topopolis and interact with their inhabitants, some of which are convinced that the Heaven's River is the whole universe. Meanwhile, the Bobs have internal strife and a looming clash with the biological humanity comes to a head. Along with the aliens from the first trilogy, there's surely more to look for in the next books.Like the previous series, the author has researched physics and engineering really well. Aside from the single Clarketech that makes the story possible, everything is believable even to our current understanding of materials and science. That lets us explore along the author what the possibilities are for Humanity: transhumanism, megaengineering, interstellar colonisation, coexistence with aliens, etc. He does also bring up some of the current problems in our understanding of the Universe, like the Great Silence and the Fermi Paradox (I suppose that was inevitable as he had Isaac Arthur for a consultant, someone whose YouTube channel I also enjoy).Unlike the previous trilogy, this book spans only about a year of time. The viewpoint shifts across multiple star systems, but everything is real time and linear. That means we lose one of the characteristic writing styles of the first trilogy, which was the jumping around through time, which forced the reader to keep track of who was were and how much time had elapsed since. That was challenging, so this much is now much easier to read, which I hope means the audience can be bigger because the author deserves it.The book is also covered with trivia related to current sci-fi. Nothing that will take away if you don't know them, but like in Futurama, it'll make your reading that much more enjoyable if you do get the references. What I didn't expect were the references to Craig Allanson's Expeditionary Force series (check it out if you haven't yet). I guess the author is a fan, which the author and I have similar tastes. I can only approve.PS: with 10000 Bobs, surely they must have run out of unique names, right? Though don't call them Shirley.

What of us, if anything, survives after death. Can we be digitized without losing our essence or soul? If we become immortal, can we or should we interact with ephemerals? If so, how? Can we reanimate from the digital or virtual world to participate in the physical universe?All of these issues are explored in this exciting series.

It's pretty much a nerd power fantasy. Endless references to other popular sci-fi. Cool superstructure used for the setting. The book offers exotic perspectives and technologically satisfying explanations to mysteries of cosmic scale. A humorous adventure that's thought-provoking and deeply relatable to any long-time science fiction reader. I'm excited to read more soon.

I loved the previous books, but couldn’t finish this one. After the initial chapters the author got lost in unecessary descriptions and boring plots.

Truly a tour de force, fitting denouement to the series, kept me turning pages, brilliant world building, thoughtful moral challenges, enough action but no gratuitous violence. Well worth a read.

Consigliatissimo

„Der Weltraum, unendliche Weiten." ist eigentlich das Motto der bekannten TV-Serie und in dem Roman gibt es viele Anspielungen auf diese und andere SciFi Werke. Ansonsten hält dieser Roman das Versprechen, was der neueste Ableger von Star Trek macht. Fremde Welten, Kulturen und Geheimnisse, Intrigen und das Ganze in einem in weiten Teilen physikalisch korrekt dargestellten Universum.Ich hoffe auf eine Fortsetzung.