u/FirstChAoS

When you donate your body to science what does science do with it?

I just finished HR. I am going to try and fit all my thoughts in here but if it is like my last book I will have more I forgot and debate whether or not to post them. (For All These Worlds I never posted a follow up).

The intro to Heaven’s River was the best so far. The author has been getting better at integrating knowledge for new readers and plot.

As many said the story felt really slow. In part because the book is thicker but the pacing also played a role. One city chase running them out of town directly after another seemed a bit much as was the lack of clues. I feel it would have been better to have Bob or Bridget find info of the resistance having a cube to lead to the decision to get captured not doing it due to a lack of ideas. Also revisiting the first city had no real plot relevance or reason to it.

Bob seems way too quick to label others as not being a Bob. Most Bobs seem Bob like just now the busy time is over they focus on Bob interests (gaming, programming, etc.). Heck even Bob himself grappled with whether non-interference should be a thing when he first met the Deltans then decided against it. The most un-Boblike thing I seen is disregard for their past accomplishments as each Bob remembers doing the actions of the previous, destroying their own efforts was the most unboblike trait.

Anyone else think that maybe the Quinlan walking a pet with a cone of shame was likely walking a junior.

Gandalf’s D&D style sucks. I said it. Like a game store game night he lets anyone wander in and play and allows PVP and usually does not allow revival of PC’s.

I noticed the administrative AI called Bob “Bawbe” like the Deltans do. I am sure that will fuel that one guys Bob time travel theory. :)

Does anyone feel the Quinlans meeting the Pav would be a disaster? Both groups distrust outsiders but the Quinlan’s back it up with aggression.

Bridget was an interesting character and really served to turn inaction into decision. As I bio major when I was in college I want to see Bridget read over and criticize the Bobs journals. “So Bob went to a planet thrown so off balance the boom and bust cycle of predator and prey relations was thrown out of whack and he didn’t notice”. So will is saying life adapted to cold thin air on his moon is loving the climate change? Do you even see the life shifting in elevation? The CO2 levels are maple tree seems to do best in is just below lethal. Just because the life appears to fare better doesn’t mean it does, etc.

Starfleet was an interesting case. I wonder why he dropped the total jerk of Jeremy the Morlock and went with the almost sympathetic Lenny instead. I hope the Bobs share the location of starfleet’s space with the humans. I would love the irony of them cutting off Bobs from interfering with humans to lead to a human assault on them. I also hope the digital threat faced by starfleet ends up more interesting than the just the skippys..

Not a bad book. It is either the second or third best (as I am unsure as to whether the original would be 2nd or 3rd)

I ate something that did not agree with me. (I will not get into the nature of the disagreement here).

I hate stomach issues since.

I was told to take Pept Abysmal to help. Is that safe? My experience with the abyss is it spawning unspeakable horrors (especially during election years).

A couple questions crossed my mind when reading Heaven’s River.

First one is, do each segment on the river rotate on its own in synch with the others? When I try and picture the whole spiral structure rotating with a solid outer shell it seems nonsensical unless it has independent rotating segments.

Second one.I am only 170 pages in (no spoilers) but how long until one of the Bobs ever thinks to suggest “maybe Heaven’s River IS Bender?” Mind you the hints (name of the megastructure and its cities, it using the same circuitry as bobs, the suggestion roomers may be watching, the tavern named for guppy, etc.) may be red herrings. However I doubt the bobs would not entertain the idea.

I am about 120 pages into Heaven’s River and something puzzles me.

Earlier they discussed testing their Quinlan androids on Quin and mentioned the possibility they might carry disease causing organisms back to the topopolis.

Later on they test them on Quin and do not appear to do any decontamination? Did I miss something?

I just started the fourth book (about 40 pages in) and am a bit nervous as I heard it was the series low point (worrying as I just finished All These Worlds, the “everyone you know will slowly fade away” book).

I was thinking about the Bob personality drift and realized something.

Bill’s hub for moots, and bar, and baseball is a fine idea and given Bob population growth may need to double as a Bob UN, But in order for bobs to stick together they need a new kind of hub.

A Bob needs to make a high capacity recreational hub catering to nerdy interests which shows old sci-fi movies and series, has room for strategy games, RPG’s, video games, etc. it would not stop bobs from being jarls or from perusing odd interests. However it would allow bobs to bond over shared nerdy interests. Basically a hub where bobs from different generations can bond over shared interests.

Someone asked about stigma due to the replicate process earlier in the week. I first thought maybe it was due to the war it was developed in and the idea of losing a physical body. Then while reading the third book (I am not done with it, so,try to avoid spoilers please) it was stated outright that the replicant process has stigmatism linked to it. That got me thinking.

First of all the fact the technology was developed from the war that nuked the Middle East May play a different role than I assumed. My first thought was it was a medical technique developed to revive fallen soldiers. Now I was thinking maybe it was used to make smart weapons or to make slaves of defeated enemy combatants.

The role of a replicant was a miserable one given a repetitive menial job (it was suggested if Bob fails he may be something like a bus or taxi). Given faiths propensity to program loyalty and inability to speak out in replicants (and overly vocal humans) I doubt the replicants were even free to complain.

This lead to a couple odd thoughts.

1. For those humans who remember earth Bobs and their personality are likely a constant reminder that their self driving car they took for granted was actually a person forced to work against his will.

2. How many replicants did the drones and roomers Riker send to scavenge metal on earth kill? He is focused on humans and a replicant free upbringing has it so automated machines that are not other probes are things he do not think,of.

3. I am sure lots of earth replicants died from EMPs in the final war. However if the nuclear winter will cause glaciation to the equator like he said it will be hell for any surviving replicant. Trapped in ice without the ability to control their sense of time like a space probe would have.

I finished the first two books and I like them.

Odd how after reading the first it was like “I want to see what happens with these loose ends” while after the second my mind is full of what if scenarios and fan theories.

Some of the character arcs are better than others. Howard finding love was not much of an interest to me. The war with the others and Bob with the Deltans however were much more interesting.

The Riker evacuating earth story took a disappointing twist in my opinion. With the death of Homer (one of the better Bobs who had character growth) and already serious Riker getting even more so and dropping the Star Trek motif.

My main complaint which got its own post were the hippogryphs.

Is it odd I keep wanting one good Brazilian probe? I know, I know, Brazil in the Bobiverse is a terrible fascist state and Masieros is a fanatic. However in the first book after the first two Madieros were destroyed and Bob checked for the mind component (blanking on term) up and found it destroyed I was like “yes, find one, remove the programming and emotional locks. He may still be a fanatic but he would be one on his own terms”. When the others appeared I was like “you know of a soldier probe, put all the speed and stealth on a probe you can and beam the info on The Others to Madieros. Turn his aggression towards a real threat.” I am hoping things turn interesting once the Bobs evacuate the Brazilian colony but I am starting to doubt it.

Things I want to see.

A Bob geeking out over a cool planet like the original did with Saturn.

Bob beaming The Others the Malthusian Equation

Bob messaging the others and saying “many things set us par art from the lesser food species other than our ability to eat them. Our intelligence, our technology, but most importantly our ability to sometimes overcome our instinct and better ourselves. I kept expecting the same of you and you kept showing me you are a slave to your instincts just like the food species. No better than them.”

As I said before one good Brazilian drone.

Fan theories I have.

Part of the reason why Bob finds so many inhabitable worlds is his library has data from past exoplanet searches, Guppi sorts the best close options and gives Bob some to choose from.

The first probes VEHEMENT (well, the Australian faction that was proto VEHEMENT) hacked were the two Brazilian probes trying to cause mass extinction on earth. I just have trouble seeing someone who went up the military ranks and is preparing a world for future colonization also deciding to kill the people he is setting up the world for. Maybe Madieros is one of the probes who went insane.

I am reading book two and am about 100 pages in and I just reached the point where Bob blew up the island and was kicked out by the Deltans.

One thing bothers me however. The behavior of the hippogryphs.

Here you have animals well fed on seals who seek food over land too. They never seem to kill a gorilloid or a leopard analog and instead make a B-line for the Deltans. They are undeterred by death of their own kind and with the exception of the injured one they do not scavenge the freshly dead.

Bob tried excusing it by saying “they are like sharks and drawn to blood” but even sharks flee when they are being killed.

They do not act like animals, they act like monsters who live to feed on humanoids and do not have starvation as an excuse as they have seals they are eating.