Brief Evaluation – We are Legion (We are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor

Bob is a guy who signs up to be cryogenically frozen using his newly acquired fortune from selling his tech company. Not one short unit of time later, he is killed and wakes up about a century into the future. Bob has to adjust to his new situation of having been uploaded to a computer and legally owned by the organization holding him amidst political conflicts in a war-ridden, dying Earth. Without rights, but with great promise, we see just what happens when you put a logical, technically-adept, atheistic human into hardware designed to replicate based on the space-colonizing agenda of the religious, totalitarian organization who owns him.

This book is pretty heavy into the science fiction genre. Taylor tries to create a believable possible future in this book, which is as much political as it is sci-fi. There are several characters derived from Bob, though all of them feel pretty different to the original. It brings up some good philosophical thoughts about humanity, consciousness, and identity. Being that the protagonist is in a computer, there are lots of “processing” that is stated during the book, similar to how Andy Weir’s The Martian works through calculations, hypothesis, and such. After finishing it, I feel that little has happened in the book. It had a lot of great world-building and drama from the politics but there wasn’t too much else. This The book did feel like it has an authenticity to it, in regards to the world that it has built. Most of the book had you situated as an eye in the sky, not often being so close into the action. Read this for the premise, the logic, and the jargon but don’t expect too much action.