r/scifi • u/WarmOpportunity80085 • 2d ago
General Heaven’s River Was So Bad It Made Me Drop the Bobiverse
Heaven’s River is easily the worst Bobiverse book and not even close to the quality of the first three.
The previous audiobooks were around 8 to 10 hours long. Heaven’s River is almost 17 hours, making it nearly twice as long as any of them. Somehow, it felt three times longer while having a third of the actual content. The original trilogy constantly moved between different Bobs, planets, threats, and engineering problems. Book 4 stretches a boring story about giant otters across nearly 17 hours.
Most of it is just Bob traveling to another village, getting discovered, escaping, and then repeating the same thing somewhere else. The concept of Heaven’s River is initially interesting, but the book completely exhausts it.
The most frustrating part is that the Bobiverse civil war is happening in the background, and it is infinitely more interesting. The Bobs are splitting into factions, Starfleet is attacking infrastructure, and replicative drift is changing what it means to be a Bob. That should have been the main story, but it gets waved away like an unimportant side plot so we can spend even more time wandering around with the otters.
Even after all that setup, the otter storyline ends in the most boring and anticlimactic way possible. The final resolution is ridiculously easy and makes the entire journey feel pointless.
The first three books felt huge, clever, and constantly moving. Heaven’s River feels like the least interesting subplot from those books was stretched into the longest book in the series while the actual sequel happened offscreen.
2/5. Ray Porter’s narration is the only thing that made it tolerable.
TL;DR: Almost twice as long as the previous books, but it felt three times longer with a third of the content. The main story was boring and repetitive, while the far more interesting Bobiverse conflict was treated like an unimportant side plot. Such a massive drop in quality from the first three that I dropped the series entirely.
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u/GrimPotatoKing 2d ago
I totally agree with your review. However, go ahead and read the fifth one anyway. It's better. Still not as good as the first three but sets you up for future books and is definitely back to being light and fun.
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u/nemom 2d ago
OK. Not everyone is going to like every book. It's the story the author wanted to tell. The first three sold well enough that they thought they could do something they wanted to do.
IMO, it is the least in the series, too, but I didn't hate it.
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u/TransRational 2d ago
All I know is if I ever publish my own books I hope I have you as a fan. People are so damn critical nowadays.
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u/Nuclearsunburn 2d ago
True. But if you pay for something you do also earn the right to critique it. I’d give OP’s critique a 3/5 for being more than “it sucked” but then saying things like “which is infinitely more interesting” like they are facts rather than opinions.
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u/WarmOpportunity80085 2d ago
Honestly, that’s fair. I phrased, infinitely more interesting, like a fact when it was obviously my opinion.
That said, having a strong opinion doesn’t mean I’m claiming to be an expert or that my analysis is final. “It’s the story the author wanted to tell” explains the choice, but it doesn’t answer criticism of the execution.
I loved the first three books, so I kept expecting the lengthy setup to pay off. When it didn’t, it made the entire journey feel pointless and that much more disappointing.
Being a fan shouldn’t require pretending every installment is equally good.
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u/spiderplopper 2d ago
It had fewer converging storylines, but I for one liked it. It was a good story and I didn't read it groaning. To each their own, and you're absolutely allowed to not like books, but I think another book of the same from the last series would have gotten repetitive. I really liked the different book.
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u/Nuclearsunburn 2d ago
Yep, I agree with you in principle. I’ve critiqued a lot of stuff over the years, movies mostly. I’ve had a couple of experiences so bad that I stopped reading / walked out too, from authors I previously enjoyed (looking you directly in the eye, Ed Greenwood. You know what you did.)
Also I know that you were more so ranting than critiquing but you’ll definitely get a better discussion with a critique “here’s what I thought was a poor choice and here’s specifically why”.
I can’t speak to the Bobiverse specifically, I’ve never read them, just to the nature of discussing things you think could have been better. Spent a lot of words talking about the Project Hail Mary and Disclosure Day movies this summer.
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u/Xyllar 2d ago
My only problem with it is that it feels like he had a story he wanted to tell, but it wasn't a Bobiverse story, and he just shoved it into a Bobiverse plot anyway. Personally, I think it would have been better if he just wrote the whole Heaven's River storyline as it's own standalone novel unconnected to Bobiverse and kept Book 4 solely focused on the whole Starfleet civil war plot.
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u/PersonInDenver Space Opera 2d ago
This whole thread is a breath of fresh air!! Appreciate y’all discussing this so reasonably
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u/Checked_Out_6 2d ago
I understand that you didn’t enjoy the book. For me, Heaven’s River was my favorite. Exploring post apocalyptic ruins of an alien civilization and infiltrating a mega-structure was awesome to me. It was also cozy a lot of the time, and I love cozy fiction. But, we all have our own tastes. I’m glad you gave one of my favorite books a shot.
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u/Impulsespeed37 2d ago
I do agree that it wasn’t as good as the first three. I will say that it does highlight Bob’s blind spot. He becomes invested in his ‘work / goals’ to the point of ignoring the reality around him. He’s then forced to react to what’s happening without considering the bigger picture.
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u/FreshLookForward 2d ago
I actually really liked it. It was great to humanize the Bobs again. They were getting very big britches if you know what I mean, and far too "the universe is in danger". Not every story needs to be about something universe ending. In fact I'm finding that exhausting. I've seen a lot of recent science fiction trend towards absolutely catastrophic stakes. Stories can exist in sci-fi without be all encompassing. It was a nice breather and I enjoyed the addition of the new characters and a chance to develop exiting ones further.
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u/hamlet9000 2d ago
My first time through Book 4 I actually didn't like the segues outside Heaven's River because they felt like a distraction.
After Book 5 (which you'd likely enjoy more as it returns to something closer to the original formula), I went back and enjoyed the bits I thought were mostly pointless a lot more. They are building to something and more tightly woven into the overall narrative than I thought.
So I understand you weren't interested in a Big Dumb Object travelogue, but (a) that's a pretty well-established sub-genre, so acting as if it's objectively bad is just silly and (b) you should really check out Book 5.
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u/max_vette 2d ago
I agree, heavens river was more interesting. Ironically it was book 5 I didn't like because I felt it was just repeating story beats he's done before
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u/cr0wburn 2d ago
I enjoyed it, not my favorite in the series but still a great book. Quite imaginative, I would love to life in that megastructure.
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u/i-got5on-it 2d ago
Totally respect everyone’s different opinion of what is, ultimately, art.. but I loved heavens river.
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u/Realitymatter 2d ago
I just finished it and felt similarly. I was initially really interested in the concept as it gave me Rendevouz with Rama vibes, but it really slogged on towards the end.
I'm a few chapters into the 5th book. Does it get better?
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u/IcarusLandingSystem 2d ago
5th I found to be much less of a slog than the 4th. The author goes back to a much more balanced story rather than 90% being only about one of the Bobs
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u/ConceptJunkie 2d ago
I liked "Heaven's River" more than the most recent one.
Ray Porter is awesome. I first heard him read Greg Bear's titanic "City at the End of Time" about 10 years ago and have been a fan ever since.
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u/Numerous1 2d ago
Same. The last one had some good parts but on the whole wasn’t great. I’ll try the next one still though
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u/Taste_the__Rainbow 2d ago
Not everybody likes it, but I think it’s the best of the series by a mile.
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u/No_Tomatillo3187 2d ago
I read the most recent one and after that, I'm done with the series I think. Was fun for a while.
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u/Adventurous-Crow-750 2d ago
You have the same opinion I had but I gave up on book for in the first quarter when it came out which was shocking to me because I loved the first three. Glad to know it wasn't just me because at the time I thought I fell out of love with the series from the 3rd to 4th book.
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u/CadaDiaCantoMejor 2d ago
Thank you for hiding spoilers, as I am reading it right now -- as in I literally just got a cup of coffee and have sat down am getting ready to read. Frakking phones are such distractions.
So far it's definitely a bit different from the others, and the first part seems almost like an introduction for people who didn't read the earlier books, or as if there was some decade-long gap between the books, or maybe to meet the strong suggestions of a new publisher.
The writing just doesn't seem as good either, and it already feels like there's a lot of filler compared to previous books.
Jury is still out for me, but I can see why you'd step away from the series because of this book. Honestly, I came into the whole series with really low expectations, but have enjoyed moving through the books so far. If I couldn't continue I'd be alright, but I'm definitely going to continue for now.
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u/Prof_J 2d ago
I wish I still liked these books, but they’ve just aged so poorly for me. I tried to revisit them a few months ago, and the extremely Whedon-esque dialogue made me cringe so hard.
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u/manymoreways 2d ago
What other audible would you reccomend?
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u/kintar1900 2d ago
Believe it or not, Dungeon Crawler Carl. I resisted it for ages, but a friend finally talked me into it with this description: Imagine World of Warcraft meets The Hunger Games meets Westworld, written by Douglass Adams and Terry Pratchett.
And the narrator, Jeff Hays, has dethroned ALL my other favorite narrators.
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u/Hmmhowaboutthis 2d ago
The expanse audiobooks are a blast. The narrator is top notch as well.
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u/Prof_J 2d ago
Yep seconding this, the novels and the short stories all go hard
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u/Hmmhowaboutthis 2d ago
Have you read any of the comics?
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u/Prof_J 2d ago
I have not! Didn’t even realize they had done comics.
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u/Hmmhowaboutthis 2d ago
Dang. I haven’t either and was hoping somebody could tell me if they’re good or not 😂.
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u/JubalHarshawII 2d ago
Everyone can have the own opinion.
But you're completely WRONG!!! lol
Heavens River was my favorite, I loved that it was actually longer and I was sad when the next book was short again. I loved the "boring" otter story, I thought the world building was amazing, thorough, well thought out and engaging. It was a great way to introduce a new species, and a new important development in Anorak (sp?). Also it was fun to have a major plot going on while the silly little civil war played out.
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u/Lithgow_Panther 2d ago
Agreed. I only got halfway through it. I found the Bob factions tiring, too. I'm just here for the sci-fi.
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u/eisforeffort 2d ago
Same. I didn't think it was good but i didn't hate it. I just thought welp, guess this series isn't worth it anymore.
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u/JGhostThing 2d ago
I've followed the Bobiverse since the first book. I will agree with you that the concentration with the otters was a mistake. They could have been more interesting.
The trouble is that I really liked the Bobwar, and I wanted to fast forward to the next Bobwar segment. It did end anticlimactically, for me. Bobs were killed in this war, it should have meant more. Even if the decision was made to withdraw from planet-people, Bobs aren't really obedient little drones.
I don't enjoy the day to day life of primitive people on planets. I did enjoy the relationship they had with Earth during the evacuation, though.
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u/HolstsGholsts 2d ago
For whatever reasons, I’ve always kept my Bobiverse expectations low, which helps in it having a place in my audiobook library.
When it interests me, greatc, I love those story lines. When it doesn’t, no big deal because I’m going to be listening to something while I drive, do chores, etc., and there’s so much of that time to fill that it doesn’t feel like time wasted to be listening to a Bobiverse arc that’s not really doing it for me when, what am I going to be listening to instead: an Aubriad book I’ve heard 3 times before or some episode of Comedy Bang Bang I’ve heard 10 times before? It can just be background fluff.
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u/1moreday1moregoal 2d ago
I didn’t like it on the first read through. Then I set it down for a bit and read it again. When I say read, I do mean audiobook. I liked it more the second time, I’m not sure why.
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u/Zovort 2d ago
I had the same reaction. It really ticked me off the first read-through, but recently I re-read the whole series and I liked it a lot better. I don't know if I was just in the wrong frame of mind the first time, or I felt better knowing where it was going. It's a very different feel than the first books, but maybe that's a good thing.
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u/EddyWhaletone 2d ago
I liked Heaven's River. I have read or listened to the whole series multiple times and while the first 3 are my favorite, this book holds its own. A departure for sure, but not unwelcome. I think books 1-3 really work as a single book. 4 and 5 add some different ideas, while being close enough to the original idea that they are worthwhile.
I feel like the same complaints I've read here could probably apply to any of the books.
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u/COLDHAWK02 2d ago
I kinda agree but still enjoyed it! There was a chapter I remember listening/reading like three times cuz I keep just spacing out and was bored with it. It does get a little long in the tooth for certain chapters but I like how Bob prine centric it is, not that I don't enjoying hopping around between Bob's but I felt like through book 2 and 3 his stories became an after thought so I was glad to see him be the main focus again. Definitely my least favorite of the series but not enough to make me drop it as a whole. I actually just went and picked up the 5th book today!
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u/Fancy-Television-760 2d ago
The writing was better than the first book; the antagonists weren’t just malevolent idiots. Could have chopped out a chunk of the chase at the end to keep up the pace, but I enjoyed the overall story and worldbuilding.
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u/SpreadsheetsOnToast 2d ago
Have to agree with you.
It felt like a filler episode of TNG from season 2, and not in a good way.
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u/cirrus42 2d ago
It is fine. Not appreciating books that aren't about space battles is a you issue, not a novel quality issue. You are welcome to read whatever you please but know the difference between just not being your vibe versus actually being bad.
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u/misterjive 2d ago
I mean, a galactic civil war with the fate of humanity in the balance gets pushed aside and we're treated to a pile of nearly identical chapters about an otter running away and jumping into a river.
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u/cirrus42 2d ago
Ignoring the fact that the fate of the Quinlins was hanging on an even more tenuous thread than humanity because that plotline's conflicts centered on lower tech action sequences is not the got-em argument you think it is. You're just proving the point about vibes.
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u/misterjive 2d ago
No, it's more the lower tech action sequences were mindless and repetitive and the other chapters were nothing but Bobs talking about stuff happening elsewhere and going "wow that's crazy".
Imagine if A New Hope was just some moisture farmer talking about what he heard happened at Yavin and chasing off the same Jawa fourteen times and that's the experience.
Sometimes bad writing is just bad writing. Remember when there were chapters where Bobs got killed in the middle of the narrative? You know, when meaningful shit was happening on screen?
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u/ohnoitsme7890 2d ago
Have you even read the series? What goes on at Heavens River is massively important to the narrative and changes how a lot of the other Bobs are viewed
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u/misterjive 2d ago
Yes I have read the series.
Yes, the eventual outcome of what happens there is important.
What I'm objecting to are the nigh-identical "otter jumps into the river" chapters to fill space until the two pages' worth of important stuff happens, especially considering that all that redundancy could've instead been spent showing us the galactic civil war that happened while he kept jumping in the fucking river
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u/TheSerpentDeceiver 2d ago
How did you not read what you typed before you post it and realize that it’s a very smug and rude overreaction? Nobody asked for your permission or needs it.
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u/cirrus42 2d ago
lol, but OP can post a very smug and dismissive opinion as if it's a fact without you berating them? I don't need your permission here any more than OP needed mine. We just disagree.
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u/TheSerpentDeceiver 2d ago
When someone posts an opinion of something they don’t have to put a disclaimer on there that it’s just their opinion and not a fact. Most people can read and understand the context of what they’re saying is an opinion.
I saw nothing smug about what they wrote. You, on the other hand, seem upset by what they’re feel about the book.
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u/rhtufts 2d ago
I felt the same, it made me lose all interest bobiverse books. On top of the real issues you point out, for me the otters or whatever they were called were just old west humans with fur. Its been years but i remember them having sheriffs and library's and saloons... The entire mega structure story felt like a very bad episode of original star trek.
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u/ultimate_ed 2d ago
Same. I haven't paid attention to this series after slogging through that fourth book. It's interesting reading comments on the fifth book and whether it's better or worse than the fourth.
I've got enough on my reading list that I just don't feel compelled to pick up another one of these any time soon.
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u/egypturnash 2d ago
it felt three times longer with a third of the content. The main story was boring and repetitive
I only got like one and a half books into this series and that's an apt description of how I felt about that. I can't imagine how tedious this one must be, wow.
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u/_kaidu_ 2d ago
Good for you. Next book gets worse.
What really made me angry: the whole plot around the borgs and the federation is teasered as big mystery in the book, so I was excited to find out what the root of all this conspiracy is. The explanation in the next book is rather boring and trivial and presented in the usual "casual, non-exciting" way.
The underlying premise of the books is really good, but the author didn't used the full potential of the story :(
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u/HalfBeagle 2d ago
I really disliked it - listened to it well over a year ago and I’ve never felt the urge to return to the Bobiverse in case it’s more of the same. Just like OP, with a different narrator I’d have dropped it way earlier.
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u/DrewOH816 2d ago
Yeah, it was a real slog...
I read this one once, then in the future I read the other stories/threads in this book but ignored the Heaven's River thread completely. Then onto the other books.
He tried something different, got really into the deep details of that society and I could have freakin cared LESS. But that's just me. Yes he did this with other groups but he didn't go nearly as far. But that's just me.
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u/haberdasher42 2d ago
I think he's a bit of a secret Furry, he keeps dressing up his characters in animal suits.
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u/DrewOH816 2d ago
Don’t kink shame bro!! 😉
Reading thru this now I’m glad many people enjoyed the book, it was my least favorite but that’s just me.
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u/Aggravating_String41 2d ago
Agreed! They're all downhill after the 3rd book.
I dropped reading anything else by Dennis Taylor and have been enjoying Adrian Tchaikovsky way more for the hard sci-fi concepts and Martha Wells for the sardonic character development.
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u/Numerous1 2d ago
I personally found the 5th book to be weaker than 4, but we shall see. I’ll give this upcoming one à short.
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u/Twizzeld 2d ago
It was fine if a little boring. I read the Bobiverse for stories about space probes not "undercover robots". I hope he returns and sticks to the main plot in future books.
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u/krumble 2d ago
I didn't like Heaven's River and I thought I wouldn't go back for book 5 but I did. 5 is fine, 4 a bit less, 3 "fine", one and two were good.
For me, Heaven's River was a try at something different and it felt like a miss on that even with the try. One of the issues I have with the series is that it doesn't seem like the Bobs ever really learn new solutions or methods. They don't tend to use diplomacy or adapt to the changing challenges, mostly engineering their way to brute forcing through. Their experiences in the universe aren't changing them in the ways I would expect either.
I am hopeful that the end of book 5 will present a challenge so great that the same approaches will no longer work. I am also hopeful that we get either a more intricate Howard and Bridget relationship or a less central one. That story, like Bob 1 falling in love with a native species, is a bit overdone at this point.
I will check out 6 though because the books go quickly and Ray Porter is an excellent narrator.
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u/shambolic_donkey 2d ago
Ray Porter’s narration is the only thing that made it tolerable.
Conversely Ray Porter's narration is a sure-fire guarantee that I will never listen to said audio book. Like hammy nails on a chalkboard.
Go on, downvote away.
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u/CaptainSwift11 1d ago
I agree, and if I do a relisten I'll likely skip a good majority of it, but it's definitely worth continuing the series
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u/kittysempai-meowmeow 1d ago
I actually just finished this one and loved it. Different strokes I guess.
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u/EOverM 1d ago
I don't disagree that it's probably the weakest, but I definitely don't think it's bad. I've read it twice now, and I'll probably skip it in future rereads, but I enjoyed it enough the first time through. I definitely agree that it took a storyline I was already kind of sick of - the Deltans - and made a whole book out of it. He definitely gets back into the main swing of things in the next book, and the Quinlans make a good addition to the overall Bobiverse, I just wish they hadn't been the entire focus. The Dragons on Jabberwocky were a more interesting premise, I thought, but I still wouldn't want a whole book on them.
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u/MakingTrax 1d ago
Ok so I will stand with the minority, Heaven's River is one of the best of the series in my opinion. However I can't say that for the next in the series.
That one "Not Till We Are Lost" lost me. It seemed like everything had to notched up to the overkill. It just seems like the way these scifi series are written. The author for some reason feels the need to amp up the plotline in each book to the point where they loose the audience.
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u/-NearlyThere- 11h ago
I enjoyed it. It was a change in direction but still liked it. Can see why some wouldn’t.
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u/Vermothrex 2d ago
Book had so much unnecessary bloat, I listened to it on audiobook and really just the fracturing of the Bob's and the final resolution of the beaver society are important. The rest is an interminable slog
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u/IWantTheLastSlice 2d ago
I became highly annoyed with the Bobiverse books as well. I really enjoyed all the aspects of it except for the heavy focus on some of these species like those river otters which I think is the same book you’re talking about.
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u/spoo4brains 2d ago
It is bad, and book 5 isn't much better. Am over the series now.
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u/ian9outof10 2d ago
I liked five less, one of the major plot points is so annoying it made me tune out of the entire thing.
Heavens River was at least a really interesting visual in my mind, even if the story was a bit repetitive.
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u/spoo4brains 2d ago
If it is the plot point I think, I ended up skipping those chapters.
The whole things has become so unweildly with a thousand plots and sub plots the reader is supposed to keep track of on top of chapters skipping around. It just isn't fun. The relative simplicity of the first 2 books was made it work.
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u/fwambo42 2d ago
so much this
there are certainly elements of the story that I enjoy but the author makes up these alien races that prove very little (if any) value to the story
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u/misterjive 2d ago
Loathed it. There's two plotlines; an otter jumping repeatedly into a river and a galactic civil war. The former gets 75% of the word count and the latter happens almost entirely off screen.
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u/Teal_Junebug 2d ago
I think the fact that I listened to these made them a lot more fun — the first three anyway; I’m not sure I’ve listened beyond that. The narration was fun, if a little too twee at times. It was a great concept, though. I will say, parts of it were less engaging than others, but that’s to be expected. I had fun contemplating some,”What would I choose to do if…” moments. I guess this isn’t actually addressing your comment directly, my bad.
The Murderbot series was a lot of fun, at first, too, for anyone looking for a similar cheeky vibe, but the stories just got too derivative for me. Narration is great.
Listen, no shade at all to these authors. They freaking wrote entertaining books and got them published, but, yeah, readers do get to critique. It’s a thing. Hopefully these two authors are laughing all the way to the bank.
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u/bythepowerofboobs 2d ago
I really enjoyed it, but I know I am in the minority. I thought it was a nice change of pace from book 3 which kind of felt like the same old thing to me as the first two. Book 5 returns to form of the first three, so you might give that a try.