Dennis E. Taylor
BornCanada
OccupationNovelist
LanguageEnglish
NationalityCanadian
GenreScience Fiction
Website
dennisetaylor.org

Dennis E. Taylor is a Canadian novelist and former computer programmer known for his large scale hard science fiction stories exploring the interaction between artificial intelligence and the human condition.

Career

While working at his day job as a computer programmer, Taylor self-published his first novel and began working with an agent to try to publish his second novel We Are Legion. However, Taylor still had difficulty getting any publishing house to take on his work, and eventually published it through his agent's in-house publishing arm. An audiobook rights deal with Audible was also reached. Once recorded, We Are Legion became one of the most popular audiobooks on the service and was awarded Best Science Fiction Audiobook of the year.[1]

Taylor has been noted as one of many popular authors that debut their work in audio form rather than print to take advantage of the explosive growth of the audio medium.[2]

Taylor's 2018 novel The Singularity Trap as well as his 2020 novel Heaven's River debuted on the New York Times Bestseller List for Fiction Audiobooks.[3][4][5]

In September 2020, Taylor released his sixth novel Heaven's River, a sequel in the "Bobiverse" series. The new novel follows a loose thread from the earlier novels involving the Bob clone named "Bender", who had disappeared mysteriously many years before and prompts a galaxy-spanning search.[6]

Major themes

Taylor's "Bobiverse" series explore how technologies like cryonics, mind uploading and artificial intelligence might change the society and the human condition.[7][8] Another major topic is global catastrophic risk, which is also featured in Outland and The Singularity Trap.[9][10]

The Stern magazine praised Taylor's distinctive humour style, often based on nerdy inside jokes and references.[7]

Recognition

Taylor's works have been translated to several languages, including Japanese,[11] German,[12] French[13] and Polish.[14]

The We Are Legion (We Are Bob) novel was a finalist of the 2019 Seiun Awards.[11]

In October 2018, Taylor was added to the X-Prize Foundation Science Fiction Advisory Council as a "Visionary Storyteller".[15] This group of accomplished science fiction authors help advise the X-Prize team on envisioning the future.[16][17]

In May 2019, Taylor was invited by Google to one of the "Talks at Google" where he gave some insight into what inspired his writings, and what his plans are for the next few years.[18]

Personal life

Taylor lives near Vancouver, Canada with his wife and daughter. He enjoys snowboarding and mountain biking when he isn't writing or traveling.[19]

Bibliography

Bobiverse (2016–2021)

No. Title Date ISBN Notes
1 We Are Legion 20 October 2016
  • 978-1-68068-032-4 (1st ed.)
  • 978-1-68068-058-4 (rev. ed.)
 Self-published as We are Bob in 2015. Revised edition published in 2016 with new title.
2 For We Are Many 18 March 2017 978-1-68068-059-1
3 All These Worlds 8 August 2017 978-1-68068-060-7
4 Heaven's River 26 January 2021 978-1-68068-226-7 New York Times Bestseller,[5] Audie Award Finalist,[20] Prometheus Award Finalist

Quantum Earth (2015–2023)

No. Title Date ISBN Notes
1 Outland 9 January 2015
  • 978-1-5056-3119-7 (1st ed.)
  • 978-1-68068-148-2 (rev. ed.)
 Self-published in 2015. Revised edition published in 2017.
2 Earthside 26 May 2023 978-1-68068-337-0 Audiobook was available as an Audible Original in January 2023.

Standalone works

Title Date ISBN Notes
The Singularity Trap 11 July 2018 978-1-68068-088-1 New York Times Bestseller[3][4]
Roadkill 9 December 2022 978-1-68068-312-7 Audiobook was available as an Audible Original in August 2022.
"A Change of Plans" 9 October 2017 978-1-9781-3894-0 Collected in Explorations: Colony, vol. 4 of the Explorations anthology series.

Audible Original stories

Stories released as Audible Originals as read by Ray Porter. Roadkill and Earthside were later published in paperback. As of September 2023, Feedback is available to read exclusively on Amazon's Kindle platform.

Title Audible release Kindle edition Ref.
Feedback 19 November 2020 15 February 2023 [21]
Roadkill 4 August 2022 1 December 2022 [21]
Earthside 26 January 2023 25 May 2023

See also

References

  1. ↑ Best of 2016 | Sci-Fi | Audible.com.
  2. ↑ Alter, Alexandra (2 June 2018). "Want to Read Michael Lewis's Next Work? You'll Be Able to Listen to It First". The New York Times. Retrieved 2018-11-16.
  3. 1 2 "Audio Fiction Books - Best Sellers - July 15, 2018 - The New York Times". The New York Times. Retrieved 2018-11-16.
  4. 1 2 "Audio Fiction Books - Best Sellers - August 12, 2018 - The New York Times". The New York Times. Retrieved 2018-11-16.
  5. 1 2 "Audio Fiction Books - Best Sellers - Oct. 18, 2020 - The New York Times". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-11-15.
  6. ↑ Taylor, Dennis E. (2020-04-21). "The release date for Heaven's River on Audible has been set for September 24th". @Dennis_E_Taylor. Retrieved 2020-05-30.
  7. 1 2 "Weltraum-Dramen und Zukunftsvisionen: die sieben spannendsten Science-Fiction-Klassiker". stern.de. 21 May 2023.
  8. ↑ Taylor, Dennis E. (July 30, 2018). "Wem gehört eine künstliche Intelligenz?". Die Zukunft.
  9. ↑ Cain, Fraser (May 21, 2019). "Interview with Dennis E. Taylor, Author of the Bobiverse Trilogy".
  10. ↑ "The Singularity Trap – Classic Science Fiction from Dennis E. Taylor". Bleeding Cool. 5 June 2018. Archived from the original on 2020-10-17. Retrieved June 5, 2018.
  11. 1 2 "2019 Seiun Awards Nominees". April 8, 2019.
  12. ↑ Berg, Guido (December 12, 2019). ""ChaosKatrin" aus Kolkwitz für Youlius-Award 2020 nominiert". www.otz.de.
  13. ↑ "Un logiciel lancé à la conquête de l'espace, parce que les humains..." www.actualitte.com.
  14. ↑ "Lubimy czytać". Retrieved 2 February 2021.
  15. ↑ "Many, many things". Dennis E. Taylor. 2018-10-26. Retrieved 2018-11-16.
  16. ↑ "Science Fiction Advisory Council". XPRIZE. 2017-05-31. Retrieved 2018-11-16.
  17. ↑ "XPRIZE Foundation Bio - Dennis E. Taylor". XPRIZE. Retrieved 2020-12-19.
  18. ↑ We are Legion (We are Bob) | Dennis E. Taylor | Talks at Google, retrieved 2022-05-27
  19. ↑ "Dennis E. Taylor (@Dennis_E_Taylor) | Twitter". twitter.com. Retrieved 2018-11-17.
  20. ↑ locusmag (2021-02-23). "2021 Audie Awards Finalists". Locus. Retrieved 2021-09-15.
  21. 1 2 ASIN B0BNWHFVVS, Roadkill eBook : Taylor, Dennis E.: Kindle Store (1 December 2022)
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