Scan barcode
A review by hlau
Heaven's River by Dennis E. Taylor
4.0
I have loved the Bobiverse through and through, for all the reasons one would think. It's good and nerdy, brilliantly written in an irreverent and real tone that is so easy on the brain. The jokes and the stakes are both where one expect them to be.
This volume is twice the length of the previous editions and I think it might suffer a bit for it. There are at least three major plots going at the same time, tackling all the issues you'd expect when you have sentient non biological life intermingling with flawed "bios" as they learn their place in the universe. Throw in a few alien species and an artificial stellar mega-construct and you'd think this has everything it needs.
But something about the energy of this one feels like it got lost about 2/3 of the way through. I didn't care much for the extended interactions with the newest race, mostly because it felt like it was like a hard jungle slog for no real great plot reasons. As opposed to the first couple of books which dealt with watching an otherwise unassuming non-human culture evolve in real time, this one felt alot more drawn out. That's the only knock against it and frankly it's not enough to ding more than a star off. I still want to keep going in the Bobiverse and this doesn't inhibit me at all from reading more Taylor books. In fact, looking forward to it.
I haven't as much fun with a series since John Scalzi's [insert anything here, but especially The Collapsing Empire series].
This volume is twice the length of the previous editions and I think it might suffer a bit for it. There are at least three major plots going at the same time, tackling all the issues you'd expect when you have sentient non biological life intermingling with flawed "bios" as they learn their place in the universe. Throw in a few alien species and an artificial stellar mega-construct and you'd think this has everything it needs.
But something about the energy of this one feels like it got lost about 2/3 of the way through. I didn't care much for the extended interactions with the newest race, mostly because it felt like it was like a hard jungle slog for no real great plot reasons. As opposed to the first couple of books which dealt with watching an otherwise unassuming non-human culture evolve in real time, this one felt alot more drawn out. That's the only knock against it and frankly it's not enough to ding more than a star off. I still want to keep going in the Bobiverse and this doesn't inhibit me at all from reading more Taylor books. In fact, looking forward to it.
I haven't as much fun with a series since John Scalzi's [insert anything here, but especially The Collapsing Empire series].