20 works of upbeat science fiction to brighten your day

We Are Legion (Cover image via Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency)

10. We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

Released in 2016, We Are Legion (We Are Bob) is the first entry in the ongoing “Bobiverse,” created by Dennis E. Taylor. As the title suggests, this science fiction series is not one to take overly seriously.

It starts with — what else? — a man named Bob. Specifically, a man named Bob Johansson, who has just sold his company and is looking forward to an extended retirement. However, that retirement is cut short when he’s killed trying to cross a street.

Things don’t end for Bob Johansson here, however. He awakens over 100 years after his death, to discover that he is now a “corpsicle” that has since become property of the state. Said state decides that Bob is best used in non-corporeal form. They upload his consciousness into a computer system that will control an interstellar probe.

Bob is no ordinary, humdrum probe, though. He’s to search for habitable planets, which has turned into a kind of interstellar land run. Like in the past, these land runs can sometimes get rough, meaning Bob will become a target. Of course, his other option is to decline and be “deactivated.”

Naturally enough, Bob thinks that he’s safest racing away from Earth as a probe, so he accepts. Of course, it would be a boring book indeed if nothing happened after that, so Bob is forced into a series of sci-fi adventures. Many people don’t take kindly to an intelligent probe poking aroudn their territory.

We Are Legion is a high-powered, joyous take on classic tropes of the genre, with smart writing and philosophical musing thrown into the mix.