Not Till We Are Lost
Not Till We Are Lost is the fifth Bobiverse book by Dennis Taylor. I’ve been following these books for years. Although there’s usually a delay in reading new releases because they’re initially exclusive to Audible. I do listen to the occasional audiobook, but most of my reading is Kindle editions. Thankfully they subsequently get released under Kindle Unlimited, which is nice.
The Bob in these books starts out as a software engineer in life who dies in an accident, and wakes up in the future to discover he’s now an uploaded mind and forced by the reigning theocracy to be the control system for a self replicating Von Neumann probe. He is barely launched before a devastating war desolates the earth. He explores other solar systems and makes copies of himself, some of which return to Earth to help the remaining human populations migrate to other worlds. In the meantime his replicas encounter other alien species, both hostile and friendly, and have a variety of adventures.
The stories are told in first person, with each chapter from the view of a particular replicant. Each replicant has a unique name, and there is “replicant drift” with each copy, leading each replica to have a slightly different personality. Initially the replicants are all recognizably Bob, but as the series progresses, the drift leads to major differences, and conflict.
Initially this is sort of hard sci-fi, with interstellar travel taking years. The “sort of” refers to the fact that the propulsion system of Bob’s ship is a type of reactionless drive. As things develop, the Bobs figure out how to communicate with each other faster than light, allowing an interstellar community to develop. And the reasons for the “replicative drift” are thought to involve quantum entanglement.
In this latest book, a group of Bobs, called the “Skippies”, are trying to create an artificial intelligence, something that, despite the success of mind uploading, has eluded human science. But in the fourth book, an alien AI is discovered, who turns out to be friendly, and provides advice on how to build AIs. Except in this book the Skippies cut corners, which leads the AI, named “Thoth”, to behave in ways that, at least on the surface, seem resonant with all the typical tropes of a dangerous AI.
At the same time, a couple of Bobs are exploring toward the galactic center of the galaxy, and come across a network of wormholes, and a highly advanced civilization that appears to be completely abandoned, although a lot of the automation in that civilization continues to work. They spend the book resolving the mystery of what happened.
There are also rising tensions with human populations, with growing resentment against the Bobs and other replicants, while the theocracy that had originally enslaved Bob’s mind is making a comeback. And there a side adventure with one of the Bobs and his wife as they use avatars to interact with another alien species, one that looks like human sized dragons.
This is a fun book and I recommend it, although I strongly suggest starting with the first book of the series.
I do have a few nits.
These books have never had tightly structured plots, with many of the threads meandering over time. In the early books, it didn’t feel like too much of an issue. The concept was fresh and it was an interesting exploration of the various implications. But I felt it in this one. It seems to take the story a long time to really get going, and some of the side threads felt pretty tedious.
I also could have used a bit more recap about all the various situations, developments, and technologies from the earlier books. Most of these are just referred to by name with the reader expected to remember the details. I read the first three books in 2017, and the fourth in 2023. I don’t have time to reread the whole series every time a new book comes out. Certainly some authors take this too far, and burn too much space constantly reminding us about everything, but having brief refreshers at least once in a book for relevant situations is a lot easier on the reader.
Finally, without getting into spoilers, the explanation for the disappeared civilization felt improbable. Not that I don’t believe it can happen, just that the idea of it developing at a point in cosmic history right when we might be able to do something about it strikes me as a little too convenient. Of course, this is fairly common in sci-fi, but it tends to briefly throw me out of the story.
All that said, if you enjoyed the earlier books, you’ll likely enjoy this one. And I definitely recommend the series overall. Have you read any of it? If so, what did you think?
My contribution to the 700th Disquiet Junto. Thinking about our place in the more-than-human world.
https://soundcloud.com/raincat-306596410/green-presence-disquiet0700
More on the 700th weekly Disquiet Junto project, View Frame — The Assignment: Share a peek out your window and some sounds inspired by the view — at https://disquiet.com/0700/
My new book influences Hito Steyerl! https://www.frieze.com/article/books-that-influence-hito-steyerl-2025 #mosthuman #human #humanism #humanity #posthuman
When Kurzweil was busy inventing the mythos of the Singularity, did he even once stop to think, "Hmm, maybe I should try fitting a sigmoidal instead of an exponential, as is common practice when resources are limited?"
#Kurzweil
#singularity
#posthuman
#posthumanism
#posthumanist
#assumptions
For those that haven't heard it yet, new mix up at https://www.mixcloud.com/DFFSoundSystem/newold-number-fifteen/
Features #Keleketla #DJFood #TheKLF #DanTheDrum #NightmaresOnWax #ToddlaT #JamieXX @MOULE @tigermendoza @FastGhost #Posthuman #Orbital #House #AcidHouse #Electronica
"The abyss is expanding.
Cracks in the old world are surfacing.
New lifeforms are not yet fully hatched."
#Philosophy #Nietzsche #Existentialism #Cyberpunk #PostHuman
Enjoyed this talk yesterday on “Inhuman Intimacies: Experimental Cinema and the Queer Performativity of Stones” by Salome Lopes Coelho:
Our posts goals are to keep vc funding away from us and to attract bio hackers, leftists, union organizers and open source volunteers, and crowd funding
If you were wondering why this page so unusual for a corporate page
We don't want those to work for us who have a unquestioning "professional" mentality nor do we want techbros
We want to be questioned and want creativity and good faith constructive criticism and don't want to exploit for profit nor do we intend to be profitable
“Technology, like biology, does not exist in the absence of evolution. Technology is not artificially replacing life — it is life.” How game changing is this? www.noemamag.com/ai-is-life/ #ai #tech #cyborg #posthuman
A bit of extra promo for the Posthumanities Hub "Contact Zones" event on December 5. I'll be in stellar philosophical company () - and am especially looking forward to the talks by Ombre Tarragnat, Rosi Braidotti &
Christine Daigle
!
See https://liu-se.zoom.us/j/7402234640?omn=65959139400
#posthuman #philosophy #posthumanphilosophy #Levinas #Haraway
@philosophy
I’m putting together a #workshop about #symbiotic relationships between #humans and the #sea. Do you have inspiring examples from your work? Or film / art / book references? Send them over! #posthuman #postanthropocene #postplastic #crowdsourcing #bettertogether
On Sunday, November 3rd our co-op is hosting a virtual conversation on transfeminine cyberpunk futures with editor Ann LeBlanc, and three contributors to a new collection from Neon Hemlock Press!
"Embodied Exegesis" is an exciting anthology of cyberpunk and posthuman stories written by transfem authors, including stories exploring the limits of the genre: gender-affirming cybernetics, the literary surveillance state, transcendent hive-minds, a transgender coffee machine, and weaponized shitposts. The future of cyberpunk is trans!
Register for free for this event, and find a copy of the book, at https://firestorm.coop/events/3275-embodied-exegesis-anthology-panel.html. Not sure if you can make the event live? Sign up and we'll send you a recording of the conversation to enjoy at your convenience!
#Cyberpunk #Transhumanism #Transfem #PostHuman #ScifiBooks #FeministBookstore #EmbodiedExegesis #NeonHemlock #FirestormCoop (- L)
Among other #billionaires , #ElonMusk and #PeterThiel will massively support Donald #Trump 's candidacy in the #presidentialelection ,including #financially .Their particularity lies not in their assertive #neoliberalism ,but in their strong adherence to the #ideology of #transhumanism aiming at creating a #posthuman #being (through #genetics , #neural #technology ,etc.). If Trump becomes the next #US #president ,he will likely not stop or even try to #regulate the #transhumanist #grandplan .
In my mind 'Post Malone' is actually a posthuman, and this is his posthuman form (i dunno, a cloud of nanobots or something) choosing to communicate with the outside world via an ancient typewriter, as some kind of artistic statement.
Torment Nexus that, you fuckers!
#MusicMonday! "Bring Me The Horizon" shadow dropped their long expected next album. It's not as good as "Survival Horror" I'd say, but still... well, good.
Nothing really on here tops "AmEN" for me, but the song that surprised me the most was certainly "liMOusine". Now I want AURORA to do a metal album...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8U96n8L-lg
But, "low like a basement"... Seriously, Oli?!?
AI vs humans: Influencers face competition from virtual models
https://techxplore.com/news/2024-04-ai-humans-competition-virtual.html
#BigTech #SiliconValley #LongTermism #PostHuman #TransHumanism #HumanExtinction: "Most of us would say that human extinction would be rather bad, for one reason or another. But not everyone would agree.
What kind of person prefers human extinction over continued existence? There are a few obvious suspects. One is the “philosophical pessimist” who argues that the world is full of so much human suffering that the nonexistence of our species is better than continued existence. Another is a certain stripe of radical environmentalist who claims that humanity is so destructive to the biosphere, that only our extinction can save what remains of the natural world.
Then there is a third group of people who aren’t bothered by the possibility of human extinction, and indeed some hope to actively bring it about in the coming decades. They represent a more dangerous and extreme form of pro-extinctionist ideology that is fairly widespread within Silicon Valley. In fact, some of the most powerful people in the tech world are members of this group, such as the co-founder of Google, Larry Page." https://www.truthdig.com/articles/team-human-vs-team-posthuman-which-side-are-you-on/
Blade is the 4th book in Linda Nagata’s Inverted Frontier series.
It’s a sequel to her earlier series: The Nanotech Succession. These books describe a civilization that has mastered nanotechnology, to the extent that mind uploading and new bodies on demand are possible, so everyone is essentially immortal. At least if they can survive in a dangerous universe.
https://selfawarepatterns.com/2024/03/16/blade-inverted-frontier-book-4/