Worlds End

I've posted twice now about the Bobiverse series by Dennis E. Taylor, a science fiction series with four books and counting. Set hundreds of years in the future, the series follows the computerized copy of one early 21st-century man, restored to life at the moment of an extreme global crisis. It also follows the many copies of that man, each with slight personality variations, as they face even more problems in their travels through the galaxy. You've probably guessed that this third post is about book three, which is titled All These Worlds. At the time Taylor wrote it, he was concluding a trilogy, so this book is all about completing character arcs, tying off loose ends, and concluding the narrative.

Endings can be hard -- particularly for any longer form story that's quite likely grown in the telling and drifted away from whatever conclusion the author might have originally intended. That might sound like I'm gearing up to say I was disappointed by the way this story ended; let me be clear that's not the case. But I would say that the book felt a little "rushed" to me, and that different facets of the ending played better than others.

The hallmark of this series has been just how many copies of "Bob" it introduces, and how they manage to keep finding new problems to face. It's inherently been a story about branching outward, finding new paths and taking them. So it's kind of antithetical to the very essence of the story to end it. (Maybe this is why Taylor published book four, and has just delivered book five to his editor.)

Still, the various Bobs are all essentially immortal and ageless, while the flesh-and-blood characters are not -- they have endings. And those endings are among the parts of All These Worlds that I found most satisfying. One Bob's long time living among an alien species reaches a touching conclusion. Another Bob's long-felt attraction to a particular woman comes to a resolution.

I think those are the aspects of the story that most interested the author as well, because they feel to me like they have the most polish. Elsewhere, an ongoing threat from another alien species leads to a climactic battle... that seems too easily resolved. The continuing menace of a rival "resurrected human" gets a blink-and-you-miss-it wrap-up. The Bobiverse series has introduced these story threads of literally galactic stakes, and yet they're all concluded in a book with a runtime (I listened on audiobook) shorter than any book yet in the series.

Still, I don't exactly mind that it's this way. As I said, I did find the conclusions of the more intimate and personal story lines to be satisfying. And moreover, this book still delivered all the things I liked about the first two: sarcastic first-person narration, a just-right interest in science fiction ideas that don't overwhelm the storytelling, and a fantastic audiobook performance by Ray Porter.

But yeah -- I'll grade this book just a touch below where I put its predecessors; I'd say All These Worlds gets a B+. Endings can be hard. But then... this turned out not to be the ending. There are more books to come, and I certainly plan to check them out.