All These Worlds recap
Unofficial recap of All These Worlds by Dennis E. Taylor. Original paraphrase, not quotations from the novel.
All These Worlds is the third Bobiverse novel. The Others are no longer a doorstep horror at Gliese 877. Harvest fleets are in motion. Bill has already watched a species die on video. The book is the family’s war novel, and it is also the one where two copies choose not to come home.
Spoilers
The rest of this page spoils All These Worlds (book 3). It does not recap later novels. Set Heaven Watch’s spoiler control to book 3 before you follow map links.
Full recap
Heaven ships meet the Others over Aszjan, the Pav homeworld at Delta Pavonis, in 2217. Bill runs the fight over SCUT and still cannot destroy enough of the strip-convoy. The hive finishes the harvest that May. Cities and yards go into the holds. The water-world is stripped of metal and life. Bill wakes Hazjiar and other Pav later and offers them their dead home or a new sky. They will not rebuild an industrial culture on a grave. The refugee ships turn for another star, later called New Pav.
After that tape, Bill turns SURGE mover plates into a weapon. SURGE is the pusher-plate drive his yard built to steer rock. In January 2223 he prints Icarus and Daedalus to walk Epsilon Eridani I and a moon of Epsilon Eridani III into the hive’s home star. The plan is a secret and a long shot. If it works, those two already talk about pointing themselves at the galactic core instead of coming home.
Jacques wakes the surviving Pav on New Pav in 2256. Phineas and Ferb help stand the settlement up. By the next April it is a working nation. Jacques can tell them then that the hive that ate their home is gone, because Icarus and Daedalus finish the decades-long tow in April 2257. They walk those masses into Gliese 877 at a huge fraction of light speed. The star is forced into a fusion runaway. The hive dies with it. Nothing in that gravity well survives.
With the Others’ sun gone, Icarus and Daedalus do not come home. Sagittarius A*, the galactic center, is the heading they already picked if the errand worked. Their ships swing off the dead system. BobNet will not hear from them again on this coast. Bridget, a human-turned-replicant, has already sat a Bob-moot as a peer instead of a passenger. The family that started as one FAITH probe now includes a war crime that worked, a refugee nation, and two brothers coasting toward the core on purpose.
Key characters
- Bill. Plans the Gliese 877 strike from the Epsilon Eridani yard after watching Delta Pavonis die. SURGE plates become a weapon.
- Icarus and Daedalus. Printed for one job: walk planets into a star. After it works they turn for Sagittarius A* instead of home.
- Hazjiar and the Pav. Survivors of Aszjan. They refuse to rebuild on a stripped homeworld and take New Pav instead.
- Bridget. A human who becomes a replicant and sits moot as family, not as cargo. Later books put her in a manny on the river.
Key places
- Delta Pavonis (Aszjan). Pav home system. The Others harvest it. Heaven ships lose the battle in 2217.
- New Pav. Prepared colony at another star. Jacques wakes the refugees there once the grave is no longer the plan.
- Gliese 877. Others’ home star. Icarus and Daedalus destroy it with kinetic masses in 2257.
- Sagittarius A*. Galactic center. Icarus and Daedalus’s chosen heading after the strike, a coast instead of a homecoming.
Timeline beats on the map
These are high-signal watch-log events. Each link opens the explorer with spoilers capped at book 3.
- Heaven ships lose Aszjan to the Others (2217) Bill runs the fight over SCUT. Enough hive ships survive to finish the strip and book later courses.
- Hazjiar refuses to rebuild Aszjan (2221) Woken Pav will not industrialize a grave. The refugee ships turn for New Pav.
- Bill prints Icarus and Daedalus (2223) SURGE mover plates become a weapon. Two copies take a decades-long tow toward Gliese 877.
- Jacques wakes Pav on New Pav (2256) The prepared world becomes a nation. They hear later that the hive that ate Aszjan is gone.
- Icarus and Daedalus destroy GL 877 (2257) Planetary masses hit the star. Fusion runaway. The Others’ home system dies.
- Icarus and Daedalus turn for Sagittarius A* (2257) They do not come home. The galactic center was always the reward heading if the shot worked.