Heaven’s River

Most Bobiverse fans can read. Perhaps this is news, but this is pretty common among sci-fi fans. Also, many people lack a commute these days, which is where audio books tend to get more play. Bring this out on Kindle, or dead trees if you must. I’m a software developer. I can’t listen to something with words while working. I would think that, of all people, you, the author would know this, given your background. My reading time is at bedtime, when it’s quiet for everyone. And, maybe this is a surprise, but I actually like to read, with my eyes. Finally, this stinks for accessibility. I can’t think of another book title that completely blocks the hearing impaired from enjoying it. I hope Audible paid handsomely for your soul, and that you can use that hard-earned cash to write actual books, with words. 🙂

Where is the Kindle version? I cant listen to audible. Looks like there be a 4 months delay to the Kindle version. The author get the big Advance by publishing the audible version 1st. Where’s the Kindle version? Answer: Audible likes to have an exclusivity deal with authors. During negotiations, they will try for up to a six month gap before the text versions are produced. The inducements to the author are: Audible pays for the narrator, Audible pays for the cover, Audible does marketing, Audible offers a much larger advance. Audible is also responsible for about 2/3 of my total income, so they are by definition my primary publisher. Fortunately my agent, who is a bit of a pit bull, has kept the exclusive period down to four months. So the text version (for the current contracts, anyway) will always come out 4 months after the Audible version.

Please don’t read this story-arc out of order, because there just isn’t a way to read these wonderful books out of order and know what’s happening! It felt really good to be back in the Bobiverse again… to be with all my friends in Bobnet and join the moot. The Bobiverse is a complicated universe, but it’s well worth becoming acquainted with (book 1: We Are Legion. We Are Bob). This book might be the search for Bender, but this story has so many threads to follow. With Star fleet (TNG) ready to start a civil war over the Prime Directive, and gamers just wanting to game, and a new civilization found living in a Topopolis (it’s CrAZy. Look it up!). The story threads are many, and also intricately wrought! On top of all that, there’s plenty of pop culture references thrown in to bring out the nerd in all of us. We get some of the science, Science-Fiction, politics, tons of action, and “human” interest… all making for a really rich, and tightly written story! A story that will keep you up long after your significant other has started snoring, just so you can find out what happens next! Heaven’s River is a broad canvas, and it allows Ray Porter to once again, paint us a vivid landscape with that marvelous voice of his!

I finished listening (3rd time) the previous book about a week ago in preparation for this one. I love the other ones. The concept and the questions they bring are fantastic. This book expands on some of those question and we explore some topics like souls a bit more. I finished the book today and I’m conflicted. On one part it introduces some really interesting concepts and plots. On the other hand the books is basically Homer’s search for about 3/4 of the book. While nice I already forgot parts of the search. It felt like a generic adventure not terrible but not amazing either. The new plots we got where super interesting and I wished the book would have explored them more. Instead of just giving you a mile high view and returning back to the search. In my opinion that adventure could have been done in half the time and nothing would have been lost. A few time skips here and there would have help a bring down the frankly boring parts of the search. At the end we get an explanation why everything happened and a look in to the future. I hope the next books explore some of the new ideas more in-depth and give us new interesting systems. All in all the book was not bad but it’s not to the same greatness as the past 3.

Three and a half stars. I’ve loved the Bobiverse through each step of the journey. I enjoyed them so much that I’ve started giving out print versions as gifts to spread the love. This book was great for the first half or so. After that it dropped down to mostly good. I can appreciate the need for linearity with the ‘Search for Bender’. Unfortunately the chase scene went on for about a hundred pages too long (it was no surprise that things worked out in the end). There was so much going on in the larger Bobiverse that really called for some deeper delving that I began to feel like the words were wasted on the the chase element and everything else was just glossed. Because this was singularly focused it felt very forced towards the end. Not a very good job of balancing.

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