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Lata's Reviews > We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse, #1)
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2.5 stars. I had high hopes for this story, but found myself mostly just turning pages slowly. I think there were some interesting concepts but I didn't think the implementation was particularly skillful. I could accept the US descending to a theocracy, but not other aspects of the situation. I also found the main character to be initially sort of amusing, but swiftly found him tedious, and yes, immature, but actually found myself getting very frustrated with the author pointing out, at least once a chapter, the main characters' immaturity, as if I was supposed to just chuckle about it and enjoy spending time with ever expanding versions of Bob. I also found the anthropological work performed by one of the Bobs to be irritating and mono-focused on just the males of the alien species, as has happened all too often on earth. And my biggest frustration with this book was I just got tired reading a book where there were three female characters whose presence you'd miss if you blinked while turning a page. Yes, I know this story was going to be about Bob and the ever expanding versions of Bob, but gack, the lack of female characters was irritating.
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Reading Progress
December 26, 2016
– Shelved
December 26, 2016
– Shelved as:
to-read
May 20, 2017
–
Started Reading
May 20, 2017
– Shelved as:
sf-f-h
May 20, 2017
– Shelved as:
x2017-read
May 22, 2017
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-8 of 8 (8 new)
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by
tiph
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rated it 4 stars
Jul 14, 2018 09:57AM
I noticed the lack of female characters too and I thought it was super.. Weird. It was a very male-centric book for sure. I think a telling moment came early in the book when Bob realized he was an AI, but that he could still find women attractive even though he didn't feel the biological drive or whatever. It was a signal - Ah yes women are pretty, but apparently I don't need them anymore since I can't have sex with them! *proceeds to write them out of the book completely, except for that one woman whose literally only characteristic is that she a relative who is continuing his family line*
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Agreed. I found the book frustrating because the main character(s)'s attitudes, which were really frustrating. I had expected so much more from this book, which had received so many compliments.
I cannot bear a book with no women at this point. We are HALF the population of Earth, we are not a minority! I can’t believe he DARED to write about a society on another Solar System on another planet and make all important characters male. I would not want to meet a man like this author.
Literally the most insane complaint I've ever read in my life. Ok, reality check. The book BELONGS to the author. Every word, every part of the story, EVERYTHING he says belongs to him and his world. You don't like that? Don't read it !
I agree so much with everything you've written! Like, I can accept a male centric cast or POV. Fine, whatever, it isn't anything we haven't read before. I can ignore a lack of diversity to a point. But to not have a single female character that has a significant importance? Wow, just wow. (And no I do not consider "distant relative" important). Like not even a straight up villain or antagonist? Contrast this with Tamsyn Muir's The Locked Tomb which is literally taglined as "lesbian necromancer in space". There are male characters. There are male characters who are named and talk to each other. There are male characters who have a great importance to the story.
I'm reading reviews trying to figure out what my problem is with this book. I didn't miss female characters, so that's not it.
I agree! The premise is so cool and I really enjoy some aspects, but reading books like this as a kid contributed to some fairly rough internalized misogyny--when both history and contemporary media corroborate the idea that "women have no place at the table," eventually you start to believe it. And yeah, the author has no obligation to put in the effort to write about a woman, but we have no obligation to pull punches when calling lazy authorship lazy.
I'm baffled at the guy in the comments who's upset someone would describe their thoughts on a book that "BELONGS to the author." What does he think a book review is?
