Finished Heaven's River by Dennis E. Taylor. This is the fourth book in the Bobiverse. I did not read book 3. I didn't know about it when I got this one. Or, more precisely, I didn't pay enough attention, so what I say here should be taken with a bit of a skeptical eye. Clearly there was background for book 3 that I didn't have and might have made a difference.
I did not think that this book rose to the level of the first two in terms of shear entertainment value. The first two were carefree, interesting, and had a serious amount of in-group humor. If you were not a S.F. fan a lot of this would blow by you. But at least for me, it was a lot of fun. This fourth book was both a lot longer (615 pages) and considerably more pretentious. It tackles BIG philosophical and spiritual questions, like "Should the Star Trek Prime Directive be the Prime Directive for the Bobs. Do the Bobs, especially the later ones, have a soul? Is a completely libertarian order a workable way to organize a society?" etc. These kinds of questions always interest me, and they did. But it took a long time, maybe 200 pages, before I felt that the book found its stride. And since I wasn't expecting this kind of story, it probably didn't seem as wonderful as it might have. So, while I would say book 1, We Are Many is very nearly a must read, this one not so much. Solid, not wonderful.
I also read Amanda Gorman's "The Hill We Climb" this is a book which I thought included her extremely powerful poem at Joe Biden's inaugural. And it does, and it gives me chills. BUT that is all it included. Wait for her next book which is going to include, and which I thought I had ordered, several other of her works.