Second book in Bobiverse series or should I say second part of three of Bobiverse book. These trilogy books are one continuous story. This starts like it is next chapter of first book. This is not individual book. You can’t start from this if you want to know what is happening. Difference to first book is chapters have actual names. Character, date and place are told at the beginning of each chapter but they are not part of chapters name. I preferred them in name. It helped to check which Bob this chapter was telling about.
In first book self-replicating probe Bob was sent to space to find habitable world. Earth was dying after war. Bobs started to evacuate people to habitable planets they found. One Bob is playing god with intelligent species he found on one planet. Several replicated Bobs explore different systems. Bobs take names from pop culture. That is supposed to provide humor. It is fun to know the reference but more would be nice.
Like with last book I have hard time understanding why this gets so good reviews. I know Audible pushed this heavily. Did they generate positive reviews in process? The book is not terrible. There are interesting ideas but it doesn’t work as well as it should. Each chapter brings only little advancement. Like author had list of what new chapter tells and it tells it while repeating what we already know.
I take playing god story arc as example. It is pretty sure Bob leads sentient beings into more dangerous area. Chapter after chapter tells how it is bit worse than we thought. One chapter tell unknown danger can fly. One chapter tells one elder being knew there was something dangerous and when Bob is ready to listen the being has already died. It goes on so slowly. It is just Bobs telling what happens with little new information in each chapter. It just goes on and on. At least this is easier to follow than Sprawl trilogy where moments lapse made you lose what is happening. No such problem here. Everything is repeated and little new happens. You could probably skip third of chapters and not lose vital information if you skip correct chapters.
For We Are Many is second act of three act structure. Which means it ends at the low point. It was predictable but somehow the best part of the book. What made it best was it broke the monotonous flow of the book. Until that point book was Bobs facing problems and fixing them. Ending lacked the fixing part. Which is coming in last book of the trilogy. These books should be one book. Yes. Next book start as next chapter of this book without explaining anything what has happened before.