Dennis E. Taylor is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

novelist and former

computer programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

known for his large scale

hard science fiction Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell's '' Islands of Space'' in the Novem ...

stories exploring the interaction between

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

and the

human condition The human condition is all of the characteristics and key events of human life, including birth, learning, emotion, aspiration, morality, conflict, and death. This is a very broad topic that has been and continues to be pondered and analyzed fr ...

Writing

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 Audible may refer to: * Audible (service), an online audiobook store * Audible (American football), a tactic used by quarterbacks * ''Audible'' (film), a short documentary film featuring a deaf high school football player * Audible finish or rush ...

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. 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. Taylor's 2018 novel ''The Singularity Trap'' as well as his 2020 novel ''Heaven's River'' debuted on the

New York Times Bestseller List ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...

for Fiction Audiobooks. 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.

Major themes

Taylor's "Bobiverse" series explore how technologies like

cryonics Cryonics (from el, κρύος ''kryos'' meaning 'cold') is the low-temperature freezing (usually at ) and storage of human remains, with the speculative hope that resurrection may be possible in the future. Cryonics is regarded with skepticis ...

mind uploading Mind uploading is a speculative process of whole brain emulation in which a brain scan is used to completely emulate the mental state of the individual in a digital computer. The computer would then run a simulation of the brain's information pr ...

and

might change the society and the human condition. Another major topic is

global catastrophic risk A global catastrophic risk or a doomsday scenario is a hypothetical future event that could damage human well-being on a global scale, even endangering or destroying modern civilization. An event that could cause human extinction or permanen ...

, which is also featured in ''Outland'' and ''The Singularity Trap''. The ''Stern'' magazine praised Taylor's distinctive

humour Humour (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Gre ...

style, often based on

nerd A nerd is a person seen as overly intellectual, obsessive, introverted or lacking social skills. Such a person may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular, little known, or non-mainstream activities, which are generally either highly tec ...

inside jokes An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or a private joke, is a joke whose humour is understandable only to members of an ingroup; that is, people who are ''in'' a particular social group, occupation, or other community of shared interest. It i ...

and references.

Personal life

Taylor lives outside

Vancouver, Canada Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. The ...

with his wife Blaihin and daughter Tina and enjoys snowboarding and mountain biking when he isn't writing or traveling.

Works

Novels

Short Stories

Recognition

Taylor's works have been translated to several languages, including Japanese, German, French and Polish. The ''We Are Legion (We Are Bob)'' novel was a finalist of the 2019

Seiun Award The is a Japanese speculative fiction award given each year for the best science fiction works and achievements during the previous calendar year. Organized and overseen by , the awards are given at the annual Nihon SF Taikai, Japan Science Fict ...

s. In October 2018, Taylor was added to the X-Prize Foundation Science Fiction Advisory Council as a "Visionary Storyteller". This group of accomplished science fiction authors help advise the X-Prize team on envisioning the future. In May 2019, Taylor was invited to 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.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Dennis E. Canadian computer programmers Canadian science fiction writers Living people Year of birth missing (living people)