Title Page: "The Fabulous Riverboat" by Philip Jose Farmer. NY: G. P. Putnam's Sons, (1971). First edition
This is the second book in Farmer's Riverworld series, a sequel to "To Your Scattered Bodies Go."
The planet was called Riverworld -- huge and mysterious, with one central river that flowed for countless thousands of miles from a hidden source to an unknown end. But worse than the violation of all known physical laws that the planet itself displayed was the mystery of how -- and why -- all humanity had been reborn along the shores of the great river. For reborn they were, every last soul, from the first prehistoric humans to the latter-day inhabitants of the Moon.
Sam Clemens is one who finds himself reborn on Riverworld, and with a shipload of reincarnated Vikings and a blood brother whose first life was spent hunting saber tooth tigers and mastodons, he has sailed the great river as he did the Mississippi of old. But his voyage comes to an untimely end when a great meteorite plunges into the stream and he is knocked unconscious. When he comes to, the mysterious aliens who for their own reasons established the Riverworld have contrived to repair all the damage caused by the disaster. Only now one new element has been introduced -- iron. And with iron at hand, Clemens can build his own paddle steamer, and on this fabulous riverboat he can make his epic journey to the headwaters of the river and the heart of the panet-sized mystery which is the Riverworld.
A television series loosely based on the Riverworld saga went into production for the Sci-Fi channel in 2001 but only the feature-length pilot episode Riverworld was completed. It was first aired in 2003. It used elements from "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" and "The Fabulous Riverboat." In 2010, a 4-hour TV movie, Riverworld was produced and released by Syfy (formerly The Sci-fi Channel) in the US and by Studio Universal elsewhere, written by Robert Hewitt Wolfe. The protagonist is Matt Ellman, an American war reporter, played by Tahmoh Penikett. The main villain is Richard Francis Burton, although in the books he is the protagonist and is written more as a hero than a villain.
Title Page: "The Fabulous Riverboat" by Philip Jose Farmer. NY: G. P. Putnam's Sons, (1971). First edition
This is the second book in Farmer's Riverworld series, a sequel to "To Your Scattered Bodies Go."
The planet was called Riverworld -- huge and mysterious, with one central river that flowed for countless thousands of miles from a hidden source to an unknown end. But worse than the violation of all known physical laws that the planet itself displayed was the mystery of how -- and why -- all humanity had been reborn along the shores of the great river. For reborn they were, every last soul, from the first prehistoric humans to the latter-day inhabitants of the Moon.
Sam Clemens is one who finds himself reborn on Riverworld, and with a shipload of reincarnated Vikings and a blood brother whose first life was spent hunting saber tooth tigers and mastodons, he has sailed the great river as he did the Mississippi of old. But his voyage comes to an untimely end when a great meteorite plunges into the stream and he is knocked unconscious. When he comes to, the mysterious aliens who for their own reasons established the Riverworld have contrived to repair all the damage caused by the disaster. Only now one new element has been introduced -- iron. And with iron at hand, Clemens can build his own paddle steamer, and on this fabulous riverboat he can make his epic journey to the headwaters of the river and the heart of the panet-sized mystery which is the Riverworld.
A television series loosely based on the Riverworld saga went into production for the Sci-Fi channel in 2001 but only the feature-length pilot episode Riverworld was completed. It was first aired in 2003. It used elements from "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" and "The Fabulous Riverboat." In 2010, a 4-hour TV movie, Riverworld was produced and released by Syfy (formerly The Sci-fi Channel) in the US and by Studio Universal elsewhere, written by Robert Hewitt Wolfe. The protagonist is Matt Ellman, an American war reporter, played by Tahmoh Penikett. The main villain is Richard Francis Burton, although in the books he is the protagonist and is written more as a hero than a villain.