It would appear that utopia is an unstable state.

The Bobiverse lives on in Heaven's River and as a fan of the trilogy I enjoyed this story. However, there was something lacking from making this a four star read.

Perhaps the search for Bender was a little drawn out in the beginning? I enjoyed the anthropology aspects from the initial trilogy by exploring new worlds and biomes through the eyes of someone on the ground. Having this happen again bordered on repetitive. The topopolis and Quinlans are unique locales and occupants but this "new world being explored" narrative would be tiresome if it repeats book after book.

It felt like there was very little else going on in the story outside of searching for Bender, and maybe having some shift in story focus occur earlier would have helped. When the bubbles of civil war did appear this was a pleasant contrast to the Quinlan/find Bender story.

It was a full-on post-human civilization, and would be a utopian dream, except for the issue of replicative drift.

Taylor continues to push the boundaries of the Bobiverse by introducing theoretical technologies and reaches the hot topic of replicative drift. Taylor does a wonderful job of taking thought experiments and playing them out in the stories. With different iterations of Bob to play out the parts it offers a wonderful opportunity to settle in for topics that are theological and existential.

the wonderful thing about knowledge is that you can give it away and still have it.

In the end this is a worthy update to the Bobiverse story and Taylor continues to leave opportunities to explore this ever changing universe that the Bobs find themselves in.