Do we like Dennis E. Taylor?
Our score: 6 out of 10. Nothing harmful or dodgy turned up, but there's little public record of his views or good deeds, so it's a cautious six.
Dennis E. Taylor is a Canadian author born in Coquitlam, British Columbia, who spent most of his working life as a computer programmer. He's now best known for the Bobiverse, a sci-fi series about a software engineer who becomes a self-replicating AI and spreads across the galaxy.
His route in was unusual. His first Bobiverse novel couldn't find a print publisher, so it went to audio first, and the audiobook went on to be named Audible's best science fiction title of 2016. That's a proper late-career success story, and a nice change from the usual overnight-sensation yarn.
On the harm check, the record is clean but quiet. We searched his name against LGBTQ+ and trans issues, women, climate, vaccines, migrants and politics and found no harmful statements, no campaigns and no troubling co-stars or studios. Absence of evidence isn't proof, and he isn't someone who uses his platform for causes, so the pass here is thin rather than glowing.
On the good-person side, we found no court cases, lawsuits or allegations against him in the sources we checked. In interviews he comes across as a working writer who talks about craft, and he credits narrator Ray Porter's acting as a big part of the books' success.
The big recent news is happy. Lord Miller Productions, the outfit run by the Lego Movie and Spider-Verse filmmakers, optioned the Bobiverse in 2025, with the format (film or series, live-action or animated) still undecided. He has said he's lucky the Bobiverse is a story that expands rather than running out of plot lines.
The good stuff is mostly on the page: a long-running, well-loved series and a hard-science approach he defends in print, saying contradicting real science without a plausible reason is the kiss of death. We didn't find charity work or public advocacy, and we won't invent any.