"The Authorities™" by Scott Meyer, 2015

The Authorities™

by Scott Meyer, 2015

Sinclair Rutherford is a young Seattle cop with a taste for the finer things. Doing menial tasks and getting

hassled by superiors he doesn't respect are definitely not “finer things.” Good police work and bad luck lead him to crack a case that changes quickly from a career-making break into a high-profile humiliation when footage of his pursuit of the suspect—wildly inappropriate murder weapon in hand—becomes an Internet sensation.

But the very publicity that has made Rutherford a laughing stock in the department lands him what could be the job opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to work with a team of eccentric experts, at the direction of a demanding but distracted billionaire. Together, they must solve the murder of a psychologist who specialized in the treatment of patients who give people “the creeps.”

There is no shortage of suspects. 

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The Authorities tries to be sharp, witty, and funny. The dialogue is flat, without the pacing or timing required to make it humorous; I see how the jokes would work in a comic strip or tv show, but they fail in this novel.
The rest of the humor is of the 'point and laugh, painfully awkward' kind, which I despise. The backer is in need of a butt kicking. The rest of the cast is odd but okay, though it takes forever to meet them.
The central plot is ... uninteresting.

Overall, avoid. Try the sample, see if it works for you. The rest of the book doesn't get any better.

My rating: ★☆☆☆☆ (1 out of 5 stars) - I did not like it.

For We Are Many (Bobiverse #2), Dennis E. Taylor, 2016

For We Are Many (Bobiverse #2), Dennis E. Taylor, 2016

Loved it! Listened to it on audio and cannot recommend it highly enough. Audio is the way to go with this series. Ray Porter narrates it perfectly. He captures the essence of each and every "Bob" and delivers the humor in a perfect manner. The story is fun, funny, exciting and at times, even touching. I love all of the "Bobs" senses of humor. This is not a book to read as a standalone. You definitely need to read book 1 first, but that's not a hardship as that one is fantastic too.

If you like your sci-fi with humor, I highly recommend this series. And I recommend it even more on audio. 

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We Are Many by Dennis E. Taylor is the second book in the Bobiverse, the direct sequel to We Are Legion - We Are Bob.

The many copies of Robert Johansson have spread out from Sol, exploring the universe and identifying habitable worlds for humanity. While a number of Bobs work on helping colonize the closest planets, most begin ranging farther and farther, not really interested in hanging around the "ephemerals." It's beginning to make the older generations of Bobs a bit worried.

Meanwhile, the Brazilian probe Medeiros is still out there, fortifying star systems in the name of a dead nation. Worse, the alien "Others" are slowly attacking every star within range, one by one, collecting all its resources—including life. They have declared war on the rest of the universe, and the Bobs have no choice to take up arms. But the Others are technologically and numerically superior, so there is a very good chance that the first interplanetary war could end badly for the entire universe.

This book contains examples of:

• Blue and Orange Morality: The Others are confused by the idea of cooperation. They will consume everything in their path, and there is nothing anyone can say that will convince them otherwise.
• Hive Mind: Variant. The Others are individually sentient, but they have no concept of individual worth. They all serve the sub-primes, who serve the Prime, and that's all there is to it.
• Horde of Alien Locusts: The "Others" have no concept of mercy, peace, or individual worth. As far as they are concerned, everything exists to be consumed in service of the Prime. If there was another Prime, the two hives would war until only one remained. They are stripping every system in range of metal and life to feed their industry and their people. Sol and the other human systems are in range, but the Others don't see the need to attack them ahead of schedule.

My rating: ★★★★★ (5 out of 5 stars) - Wow. I loved it!

We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse #1), Dennis E. Taylor, 2016

We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse #1), Dennis E. Taylor, 2016

Breezy, snarky SF story by first-time authors that promote their own work, capture a lot of positive word-of-mouth and become very popular without major publisher help initially. I’m thinking of Andy Weir’s The Martian, Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, and John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War. Basically, these books are a whole lot of fun, drop liberal 1980s geek references, tell an exciting tale, and reject the dark and grim cyberpunk futures exemplified by William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon, Alastair Reynolds’ Chasm City, etc. Don’t get me wrong, those are all excellent books too, but man, are they depressing!

It’s a very simple story. Bob Johansson is a young Internet entrepreneur who has just sold his successful business to a larger competitor. Flush with cash, he arranges for his body to be put in cryogenic storage when he dies as an insurance policy, and on the way to a SF convention he gets distracted crossing the street and…

Wakes up 117 years later in a repressive future society that somewhat reminded me of Woody Allen’s classic SF spoof Sleeper (1973). We Are Legion (We Are Bob) is nothing if not topical — Taylor had me laughing out loud in painful acknowledgement with this succinct description of the future US theocracy. Obviously very different from our current world, thankfully…

Bob is now a bodiless AI, or replicant, that has been revived along with several other candidates for an urgent project by one faction of the current US government to seed the stars for humanity while competing with other rival nations. It turns out that most AIs turn insane when they understand their new situation, but Bob seems to have a better temperament for accepting his new existence as an AI that essentially controls a collection of servitors, etc. The choice is elegant — either accept the assignment to pilot a fleet of Von Neumann machines to seed new stars with colonies, or be shut off permanently.

Bob’s no-nonsense, self-deprecating internal monologue is the backbone of this enjoyable tale, very much like Mark Watney in The Martian. He always has a quip for each occasion, a super-rational and creative engineering mind, and indefatigable optimism no matter the circumstances. If you like that style of story, you’ll be in good hands, and the audiobook narration by Ray Porter is excellent. I found myself smiling at Bob’s one-liners and refusal to be dragged down by setbacks. He is a character any reader can root for.

The bulk of the book involves Bob’s adventures escaping the ploys of other nation-states back on Earth, hostile rival AIs tasked with the same mission, and then the very existential struggle of Bob coming to terms with cloning himself into a multitude of Bobs, hence the book’s title We Are Legion (We Are Bob). Bob’s chats and debates with his other alter-egos are hilarious and probably the best part of the book. It also makes the book less claustrophobic than The Martian, because the other Bobs do have distinct character variations, essentially different aspects of the original Bob’s persona. They choose names for themselves like Riker, Homer, Garfield, etc., so we get plenty of 80s geek references just like Ready Player One.

The final third of We Are Legion (We Are Bob) tells the adventures of Bob and his alter-egos as they

encounter a more primitive species of humanoid aliens and play a bit of God trying to favor one group over another, much like a Star Trek scenario (you know, the Prime Directive and all that). The main mechanism that drives the engineering technology is the ability to use 3D printers to build anything with the right raw materials from asteroids and planets, so Bob has to decide between replicating himself, building colony ships for Earth’s survivors, and building other 3D printers. Imagine the SF version of “For my third wish I wish for unlimited wishes.” This is clearly intended as the opening salvo of an ongoing SF series, since Taylor can take Bob’s adventures in any direction he wants. If you are a fan of the books mentioned in this review, I think you’ll definitely enjoy the ride.



My rating: ★★★★★ (5 out of 5 stars) - Wow. I loved it!

Star Carrier (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 3) by B.V. Larson, 2016

Star Carrier (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 3) by B.V. Larson, 2016

Once again, we’re with Captain William Sparhawk, of House Sparhawk, and his stuffy, straight-laced way of speaking and acting. You’d think this book was written back during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, but it’s definitely not. We’re far, far in Earth’s future after the Cataclysm. Earth is now aware of other civilizations out in space and many of them were former colonies of Earth. Captain Sparhawk of the Star Guard was a part of a dying military establishment that had nothing of importance to do until he found a derelict battle cruiser, the Defiant, drifting outside the asteroid belt. He commandeered the vessel and eventually recommissioned it as a Guards vessel. He was left in command and then sent to find out where this huge ship had come from.

Earth had once been a spacefaring planet, but then the oldsters decided they had enough of that and shut down the bridges to hyperspace which connected various star systems. Only recently had they sent Sparhawk and the Defiant to explore these other regions mainly for two purposes. One was to find out what was out there, what had happen to the colony ships long ago sent through these bridges and then abruptly cut-off, and secondly to maybe get rid of Captain Sparhawk who seemed a little to rebellious to the oldsters.

Earth was now apparently ran, behind the scenes, by a bunch of very, very, very old people who had once been in power in the government and chose not to give up that power. They secretly built and underground bunker and have stayed there for many decades slowly controlling everything and everyone on Earth. How they do this is something you’ll soon find out. You will find also find out that they have conceived of a plan to ensure Earth’s lost colonies don’t come back to harm Earth after being abandoned. Sparhawk might have a hand in this effort.

I get a kick out of the arrogant writing. It’s as if Sparhawk is a Prince of some kingdom and he manages his ship that way. He’s tries to be “easy going”, but the writing just doesn’t let him get that way. I don’t know how to pin-point it, but you get the feeling that his crew should be answering his commands with, “Yes, your Majesty!”, instead of “Yes, Sir!”.

Still, the writing is good and the stories follows from one to the next. We get a lot of character crossover so you’ll be instantly familiar with the characters in this book. I’m not sure if this series continues. While I think the author would like to see it go forward, he kind of ended everything on a very high note so it would be interesting to see Captain William Sparhawk and the Defiant in another book.

★★★★☆ (4 out of 5 stars) - I really liked it.