10 years ago, Canadian author Dennis E. Taylor released his second book We are Legion (We are Bob) in audiobook format. Unable to find someone to publish his work in print, he received an offer from Audible. Soon, We are Legion (We are Bob) became a huge Audible success story.
We spoke to Taylor and voice actor Ray Porter on the tenth anniversary of the release. Six books in, Taylor is a happy man. He told Sportskeeda:
“Well, I don’t know what I expected when I wrote the first book. This is not it. Nothing even close to this. But everything keeps exceeding expectations. It’s hard to be upset.”
Taylor wrote the first book in the Bobiverse in the traditional format, not even knowing that audiobooks were a thing. We are Legion (We are Bob) was thankfully a natural fit for Audible:
“I didn’t even really know audiobooks existed. I mean if somebody had asked me flat out, I would have said sure, there must be an audio version of some books on vinyl or CD or something like that. But I didn’t know the company name Audible or anything like that. I just wrote it.”
And lo and behold! The story translated wonderfully into the Audible format, thanks to the format the story was written in and the talents of voice actor Ray Porter. Taylor continued:
“There are some style decisions that you should make when you write for audio. I was just fortunate that I tended to write that way anyway.”
Dennis E. Taylor still remembers the day when he heard We are Legion (We are Bob) in audiobook format:
“It was absolutely mindblowing. And you’ve got to remember, because I was published audio first, I didn’t have a text version to look at. The audiobook was my book. That was it.”
Ray Porter’s voice made We are Legion (We are Bob) special
In this science fiction saga, Bob wakes up in the future and realizes he has no body. He embarks on an interstellar adventure and makes several replicants of himself. Porter recalled his first impression:
“The prospect of it was daunting. The way that it was presented to me was that we have a sci-fi book with hard science and I was like great, good, love that. I am a big science space fan. I love all that stuff. And you’re going to play a guy who replicates himself endlessly. So you’ll have 50 to 60 characters and it’s all the same guy.”
Even though several Bobs are replicated from the first one, each one has a distinct personality. The writing is what informed Ray Porter’s decisions in creating the Bobiverse:
“All of the different characters, even though they are replicants essentially, all have their own identities in different ways.”
We are Legion (We are Bob) paved the way for several other books in the Bobiverse series. The Infinite Extent, the sixth installment of the Bobiverse is currently out on Audible, expanding the universe significantly.
Edited by Riju Dasgupta
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