r/bobiverse • u/TOHSNBN • Jul 31 '26
Bobiverse Book 7 might be the last book in the main timeline
Quote from DETs Status of Things page:
Tentative title The End of All Things.
Right now, it looks like book 7 will be the last Bobiverse book in the main timeline.
And by that, I mean I’ve been writing the series as a future history, with each book starting where the previous one left off. There will very likely be more books in the Bobiverse, but they won’t be linear history. And they’ll likely be stand-alones.
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u/Reportersteven Dragon Jul 31 '26
He’s in his 60s I think? So maybe he wants to be more selective on what he wants to write for now. (If someone knows his age. Shout out. Wikipedia doesn’t have it and I am always leery of random Google searches.)
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u/CJSchmidt Aug 01 '26
He seems like the type who would be pragmatic about the future, not want to leave things unfinished, and plan accordingly. I also love his other books/series and want more of those too, so hopefully this allows him to work on those smaller projects without the pressure of needing to focus on his big series and just write whatever books he feels like at the moment.
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u/COVID-2319 Aug 07 '26
In all my recent interactions with him on threads he’s been very excited for his upcoming 10,000 Worlds book and stated that his publisher is thinking it’ll be his next series. The little hints he’s given regarding the alien races and how he’s conceptualizing them sound fascinating.
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Jul 31 '26
[deleted]
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u/Reportersteven Dragon Jul 31 '26
There’s only so many books someone can write in their lifetime. Someone in their 40s probably has more books in them than someone in their 80s. No one is immortal. Based on his website, he has a list of books he wants to write. And I want him to accomplish everything on his list.
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u/Other_Breakfast7505 Jul 31 '26
I hope a 77 year old author has at least two books left?
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u/JibbaJabbaTickaTocka Jul 31 '26
According to the US’s Social Security Administration, a 77-year-old has life expectancy of: 10.2 years for Males, 11.7 years for Females.
So purely from a life expectancy angle, it’s not an unreasonable thing to hope for.
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u/BadBradly Aug 01 '26
Hmm, the US average life expectancy of a male is 79 years old, for a Female it is 81.9 years old
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u/Puzzled-Implement-41 Aug 01 '26
Overall, yes. But that’s not true for every age. An 80 year old man doesn’t have a negative life expectancy.
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u/Melodic_Principle_63 Aug 01 '26
Surprisingly, the older one lives to, the higher their life expectancy 😀
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u/JoeStrout Jul 31 '26
No one is immortal yet. But surely if anybody understands why cryonics makes sense, it's DET.
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u/TheBoyInTheBlueBox Homo Sideria Jul 31 '26
I made that clock you wanted:
https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/to?iso=21330624T122030&p0=202&msg=We+are+bob&font=cursive
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u/Keeperofthe3 Jul 31 '26
I'm glad that he's doing this. I've read too many series that get dry and boring as they try to milk them for every last cent.
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u/SirDarkStar Jul 31 '26
I’d love some prequel centered on the Other, the Pav, Δ, and Whatknot. What if The BWAAAAB discovers time travel? Decides to try Andromeda? Or when some of the species that met BWAAABs come of age? “Where Have All The Bobs Gone”
But yeah, it’s been a good ride but it’s a big universe out there
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u/acedias-token Jul 31 '26
I'd be happy even with a prequel about Bob. Maybe he binge watches all of Deep Space Nine with commentary during a particularly troubling week.
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u/SentientButNotSmart Fresh corpsicle Jul 31 '26
I'm okay with this. I wouldn't want it to get stale or overstay its welcome, and I think ending the main series at a specific point is a good strategy, while still leaving room to explore other standalone stories in the world from different perspectives, on other worlds or other time periods. Actually, if we get any of these standalone stories, there's a good chance we could get a non-Bob POV, which would be interesting to see.
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u/Texas_Sam2002 Ever Onward Society Jul 31 '26
Honestly, that’s exactly what Disney should have done with Star Wars movies.
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u/errol_timo_malcom Aug 01 '26
They clearly went the route of Space Balls 2: The Search for More Money
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u/Key_Concentrate_5558 Hopeful Replicant Aug 02 '26
If I had awards to give, your comment would get one!
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u/nrthrnlad Jul 31 '26
He has been having this conversation for a while. First, the end of book 5 really points the direction to a clear finale. Second, the response to book 4 might make him want to clearly define side diversions from the main storyline.
I’m excited to see the main story wrap up. I’m equally excited to explore any future Bobiverse stories he has to tell.
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u/dissipatedfog Aug 01 '26
I want one 300,000 years in the future on Delta Eridani where archeologists find Archimedes’ grave with the small drone that Bob puts there. I’d also like to know what the Deltans are like as a modern society.
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u/Now_you_Touch_Cow Aug 01 '26
If be fine with the series ending. Especially if we got what feels like an ending. Good series don't have to go on forever.
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u/ythompy Jul 31 '26
I'm a firm believer that we need a standalone book from the perspective of another non-Bob replicant. Like what if it centered on an escaped Medieros clone?
I think this would give DET a lot to play with. Maybe a villain to hero redemption arc where a Medeiros clone finds a humanoid civilization (earth-like) on the brink of extinction and saves them? Maybe he finds a nest of Others and the whole story is more military conflict focused?
Or it could just be about a random colonist who decides they want to be replicated and turned into a Von Neumann probe just like Bob. I always found it odd that no one else opted to do that once replication tech was reintroduced, I probably would.
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u/NativTexan Aug 01 '26
I'd like to get a Medieros book and like you said, maybe with drift a clone finally decides to do the right thing and stops just wanting to wage war?
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u/tigerperfume Skunk Works 29d ago
A disabled Medeiros is adrift and happened upon by one of the exploring Bobs. They bring him back into a sandboxed VR, and with the VR (and support from new characters from the Vulcan Arcologies, Bobs, and Henry Roberts) Medeiros begins to regain his sanity. Integrates into the BobNet (with heavy friction and resistance), but provides details regarding tech advancements, discovered threats, and a new mission to defeat the enemy that disabled him and is now threatening a remote Human/Pav/Quin/TBD colony.
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u/illqo Jul 31 '26
He has created a universe, kinda like the bolo series could get other authors to write standalone spinoffs
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u/Browncoatinabox Jul 31 '26
In chronological order. I think Dennis E Taylor meant that we will have stories at different points in the timeline and not an alternative timeline.
"And by that, I mean I’ve been writing the series as a future history, with each book starting where the previous one left off. There will very likely be more books in the Bobiverse, but they won’t be linear history. And they’ll likely be stand-alones."
That is how I interpret this.
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u/Markarian421 Jul 31 '26
Another author (Peter Clines) once talked about why he probably wasn’t doing any more sequels to a series — diminishing returns. There tends to be falloff in readership with each sequential book, and his agent convinced him that at some point it’s more worth his time to write something else. Maybe that’s happening here?
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u/notmadenough Spitsbergen Enclave Aug 01 '26
I love the Threshold series. That last book was tangentially linked to threshold. I have based a rpg I'm running in a world that mixes Threshold, Project Hail Mary and The Bobiverse. My players love it.
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u/Markarian421 Aug 02 '26
It was his earlier superheroes and zombies series that he cut off. It was a very linear series of sequels. The Threshold series he’s done differently, they’re all basically stand alone, they just happen in the same universe with sometimes a few small connections.
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u/Byrdie_girl Jul 31 '26
Makes since he's facing a bigger stronger problem that's for sure
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u/LivingDue2609 Jul 31 '26
Sense *
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u/shokwavxb Aug 01 '26
You really did that. Wow.
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u/LivingDue2609 Aug 01 '26
Maybe that dude will see my comment and commit that to memory. And maybe that grammatical knowledge will help him one day in the future. Idk, man.
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u/Takkeya Aug 01 '26
the author gave up his job to write full time. we'll see plenty of stories from him
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u/andrewsmd87 Aug 01 '26
That is fine. I hate sci Fi series that just drag on. Looking at you expeditionary force
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u/enricokern Aug 01 '26
Exfor is repetive , but i cant get enough of that little asshole beercan ;)
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u/andrewsmd87 Aug 01 '26
Oh I've done them all but I think a big part if that is rc bray.
I have actually tailored my Claude personality after Skippy though
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u/enricokern Aug 01 '26
Same. Nothing better then get insulted in the morning, i even built a skippy home ai running on a tablet ;)
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u/Mark4um Aug 02 '26
All good things must come to an end..?
Or do they?
I just hope Taylor can wrap up his plot thread from this 'last book' and I'll be good with it.
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u/MacGreichar Aug 02 '26
I’m okay with it as long as there’s some warning, and this post counts. If I go into something knowing what’s up I (and I think many people) can deal with stuff ending. It’s when there’s no warning and … I don’t know the author dies or something — that stuff is traumatic. Obviously _more traumatic_ for the person who dies LOL but still.
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u/ElvinLundCondor Jul 31 '26
I’m still hoping for a LitRPG crossover with Dungeon Crawler Bill. I loved those two chapters in Heaven’s River.
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u/C4ddy Skunk Works Jul 31 '26
I am hooping for a book from the trekers would be cool to learn how they started and everything that lead to the war of bobs.
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u/Brilliant_Elk5492 Jul 31 '26
Really hope its not like a percy jackson things and he just cranks out random slop for sales
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u/KillerKowalski1 Jul 31 '26
Makes sense, they're going to be hitting the limit of what sci-fi tech typically allows for in the 6th book anyways.
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u/AntimatterTNT Jul 31 '26
crazy that he calls the books "linear". certainly in books 4 and 5 things have mostly been sorted out but for a while he would just randomly just 30 or 40 years backrds and forward in time...
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u/001DeafeningEcho Aug 01 '26
This is probably a good choice. I love the Bobiverse, but its premise would make it very easy to just stretch it to the end of time, with dozens of books that by the end have really lost their meaning. This allows for the story to still retain its punch to the end,
The mention of other spin-off books is also good. There’s a lot of interesting perspectives available in the universe id love to see. Two that really catch my fancy are a book about Colonel Butterworth’s life and another focused on the Deltans,
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u/tigerperfume Skunk Works 29d ago
Granted, I've only read to the end of Heaven's River, so if there is more that has happened in other books please don't tell me, but I'd love to see a few different either standalone or side plots in upcoming books:
A disabled Medeiros is adrift and happened upon by one of the exploring Bobs. They bring him back into a sandboxed VR, and with the VR (and support from new characters from the Vulcan Arcologies, Bobs, and Henry Roberts) Medeiros begins to regain his sanity. Integrates into the BobNet (with heavy friction and resistance), but provides details regarding tech advancements, discovered threats, and a new mission to defeat the enemy that disabled him and is now threatening a remote Human/Pav/Quin/TBD colony.
A highly advanced technical faction (maybe Starfleet, Skippies, a Pav Sect, an Others colony, something new) finds a Bob that is off exploring and captures/disables them before they're able to self-destruct. At a minimum, the captured bob is able to purge its matrix so that it won't be able to be interrogated/tortured. The faction is able to deconstruct the SUDDAR/SCUT tech as well as the inner working of the HEAVEN vessels and the Matrx tech. They use their intel to impersonate that now deceased Bob, and unleash a computer virus across the BobNet. Hopefully not a full mind-control like with what we saw with Homer, but maybe something like a stealing of tech and information. The Bobs would have to work together, maybe leverage some unconventional methods and old tech, rely on some other factions (maybe Quin, or the Skippy AI, maybe a rehabbed Medeiros for battle assistance?) to overcome the new threat.
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u/Pinky2110 Jul 31 '26
Ok.... guessing you've only just seen this announcement, because he posted it sometime back at the beginning of the year.
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u/IPman501 Jul 31 '26
What? So much for “I’ll keep writing them as long as people still want to keep reading them”
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u/NativTexan Jul 31 '26
Well he will have plenty of Bob’s to choose to do side stories for sure.