Riverworld
The Riverworld series consists of five science fiction novels by American author Philip José Farmer. The Riverworld is an artificial, or heavily terraformed, planet where all humans who ever lived throughout history have been resurrected. The novels explore interactions of resurrected individuals from many different cultures and time periods. The underlying theme is quasi-religious. The motivations and ethics of the unknown intelligences that created the Riverworld and its inhabitants are explored.
The series' cast of characters includes Cyrano de Bergerac, Richard Francis Burton, Hermann Göring, John, King of England, Alice Liddell, Jack London, Tom Mix, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Odysseus, and Mark Twain.
Works
Original, unpublished manuscript
Riverworld began when Farmer wrote a 150,000-word novel, calling it Owe for the Flesh, over six weeks in the fall of 1952 and submitted it at the last minute to the Shasta Science-Fiction Novel Prize Contest. He won the contest, with assurances of publication, but circumstances conspired to ensure that that would not happen for many years. The complete manuscript, now believed lost, consisted of four "books":- Owe for the Flesh
- * "The Great Cry"
- * "A State of Honesty"
- * "The River of Eternity"
- * "The Paddle Wheeled Comet"
Magazine publications
With no prospect of imminent publication, Farmer moved on to other projects. But in 1963 and '64, he rewrote the material into a second version and in late 1964 into a third, which he now called Owe for a River. This version was submitted to Ballantine Books, but it was rejected as being too much of an adventure story without sufficient deeper philosophical implications. Undaunted, he sent the manuscript to Frederik Pohl who at that time edited a number of prominent science fiction magazines. Pohl suggested that Farmer break the novel into several novelettes for serial publication in his periodicals. Farmer agreed, and thus the fourth version of what started out as Owe for the Flesh 13 years before finally saw publication as five novelettes:- "The Day of the Great Shout"
- "Riverworld"
- "The Suicide Express"
- "The Felled Star"
- "The Fabulous Riverboat"
As to the novelette that remained a "standalone"—"Riverworld"—it underwent a slight expansion and was included in Farmer's collection Down in the Black Gang in 1971. After one more expansion and polishing, it was included in the collection Riverworld and Other Stories in 1979.
Published novels (and short stories)
The five novels in the Riverworld series are as follows:- To Your Scattered Bodies Go —Hugo Award winner, Locus Award nominee
- The Fabulous Riverboat
- The Dark Design
- The Magic Labyrinth
- Gods of Riverworld
- Tales of Riverworld
- ''Quest to Riverworld''
Story
Setting
On the Riverworld, every human who ever lived and died—from the earliest Neanderthals up to 1983—is resurrected on the banks of a seemingly endless river on an unknown planet. Along the river's almost 18 million twisting and turning miles, some 36.6 billion humans are miraculously provided with food, but with no clue to the possible meaning or purpose of this strange afterlife.Some people set sail upon the great river to quest for the meaning of their resurrection, and to find and confront their mysterious "benefactors". Among the denizens of the Riverworld, we meet Sir Richard Francis Burton, Mark Twain, Odysseus, Cyrano de Bergerac, Hermann Göring, Tom Mix, and many others, including a modest alter ego of the author himself. Some characters collaborate and some embark upon solo journeys of their own in this landscape.
Overview
Starting in the "late twenty second century", the Riverworld has been engineered by an alien race to consist solely of a single long river-valley which snakes across its entire surface. The river's source is a small North Polar sea, from which it follows a course tightly zig-zagging across one hemisphere before flowing into another, along an equally labyrinthine path, to the same sea. The river has an average depth of, and its width ranges from to. It is shallow near the shore but plunges to enormous depths towards the channel. The banks are generally smooth and gentle, expanding into wide plains on either side, then assuming jagged hills before an impenetrable mountain range. The valley averages in width, but includes narrows and occasional widenings into lakes with islands. From source to mouth, the original supposition of the river's length is 20,000,000 miles, as said by Alice Hargreaves and attributed to Peter Frigate, shortly after the defeat of Hermann Goering. . There are no seasons, and daily variations are metronomic. The only animal life consists of fish and soil worms. The vegetation is lush and of great variety, including trees, flowering vines, several kinds of fast-growing bamboo, and a resilient mat of grass which covers the plains. The Riverworld has no visible moon, but a great number of stellar objects in the sky, including gas sheets and stars close enough to show a visible disk.The story of Riverworld begins when 36,006,009,637 humans, varying from the first Homo sapiens until the early 21st century, are simultaneously resurrected along the river. Of these, 20% are from the 20th century, due to the high population thereof. Originally the cutoff year was given as 2008 in To Your Scattered Bodies Go, but this later was modified to 1983 in The Dark Design. Purportedly, the cut-off indicated the point at which most of the human race had been purposefully annihilated by first contact with aliens visiting Earth. The protagonists later find this a creative fiction, produced by the masterminds of the resurrection. Undercover agents of these masters placed on the Riverworld would identify themselves as having died after 1983 so as to be recognized by fellow agents.
In each area are initially three groups of people: a large group from one time period and place, a smaller group from another time and place, and a very small group of people from random times and places.
Resurrectees
Most of the resurrected awaken in a body equivalent to that of their 25-year-old selves, in perfect health and free of any previous genetic or acquired defects. All heart disease, tooth decay, and blindness are gone, all amputated limbs are restored, and all scars, tattoos and other body modifications are removed; whereas certain neurological impulses remain intact. These bodies do not age, and can regenerate nearly any non-fatal injury, including dismemberments and blindings. The new bodies are completely free of infection and seem resistant to it. Initially hairless, the bodies grow cephalic hair and pubic hair at a normal rate. Men do not have foreskins or grow facial hair; whereas women have intact hymens. It is impossible to conceive children on the Riverworld; all food provided by grails contain contraceptive substances, and there is no wathan generator on the Riverworld so any babies born there would lack sapience.Anyone who died at an age younger than 25 assumes a body equivalent to that lesser age, which then ages at a normal rate before stopping at 25. Should an individual die, they are resurrected elsewhere along the banks of the river at random. Some people even use this process to travel, though there is a limit to the number of resurrections available to each person; one of the main protagonists is warned by the creators of the Riverworld that after 777 deliberate suicides he is in danger of failing to resurrect after his next death. No one who was less than five years old at death is resurrected on the Riverworld, nor are people deemed to be incurably insane. No hominids born before the approximate year 97,000 BCE were saved for the Riverworld project and thus were never resurrected anywhere.
One of the themes of the series is the way historical characters change as a result of this cosmopolitan setting. For example, one of the characters depicted in the first book of the Riverworld series, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, is a tormented, drug-addicted Hermann Göring who ends up as a missionary of the Church of the Second Chance, a peaceful religion. Apparently left to their own devices, the people re-create their Earthly societies.