Into the Bobiverse (Interview)

The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source

Dennis E. Taylor joins the show to take us “Into the Bobiverse” and other books he’s written. Dennis shares the backstory on how he went from programmer to author/writer and creator of Audible’s Best Science Fiction Book of 2016, his process for iterating and developing the story as he writes, plans for a Bobiverse movie, and what’s next in book 5 coming out in September 2024.

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Featuring:

• Dennis E. Taylor – Twitter
• Adam Stacoviak – Mastodon, Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn, Website

Show Notes:

• dennisetaylor.org
• We Are Legion (We Are Bob) - on Audible
• Not Till We Are Lost - on Audible
• Feedback - on Audible
• Xprize - Deep Tech + Quantum
• Self-replicating spacecraft on Wikipedia
• Hard science fiction on Wikipedia
• Dennis E. Taylor on Wikipedia

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Chapters

1. Into the Bobiverse! (00:00:00)

2. Sponsor: Sentry (00:01:38)

https://sentry.io/

3. Dennis E. Taylor is here (00:04:55)

4. From programmer to writer/author (00:06:18)

5. Revenue sources (00:08:53)

6. Luck and timing (00:10:28)

7. OMG Ray Porter! (00:11:54)

8. Hard SF vs Plausible SF vs SF Fantasy (00:13:28)

9. Becoming a writer (00:15:48)

10. Feedback for Dennis (00:18:44)

11. Sponsor: 1Password (00:24:45)

https://1password.com/changelogpod

12. We Are Legion (explaining the title) (00:27:49)

13. Starting a BIG story (00:29:37)

14. Iterative writing (00:32:02)

15. The significance of VR (00:35:11)

16. What's Bob's motivation? (00:42:27)

17. How to trilogy? (00:44:23)

18. Ethan Ellenberg (Dennis's agent) (00:46:02)

19. Kickstarting a printed version (00:46:49)

20. Movie option for the Bobiverse? (00:48:59)

21. Setting up multiple species (00:55:41)

22. Sponsor: Socket (00:57:57)

https://socket.dev/?utm_source=changelog&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=changelog-interviews

23. Sponsor: Intel Innovation 2024 (01:00:48)

https://intel.com/innovation?regcode=CMCCHL&utm_campaign=Changelog

24. Ray Porter and Dennis (01:02:21)

25. How possible is a movie? (01:05:55)

26. Ready Player One / Ready Player Two (01:06:50)

27. When will the movie come out? (01:10:38)

28. Book 5 teaser (01:12:53)

29. Timing in the book (01:14:34)

30. Xprize working group (01:16:19)

31. The Fly (01:23:29)

32. Bobiverse after book 5 (01:24:24)

33. Bob, out. (01:26:02)

34. Closing thoughts and thanks (01:27:36)