TL;DR
8/10. Collects Philip Jose Farmer’s first two novels, built on one of science fiction’s great high-concept premises, every human who ever lived resurrected along an endless river, with real historical figures like Burton and Twain interacting across the ages. I like it and would reread it, rating these strong openers an eight despite slow spots and a protagonist who never quite holds it together. The later sequels lose the thread and rate much lower.
Every human who ever lived wakes up, all at once, young and healthy, on the banks of an endless river that winds across an entire planet. From that staggering premise Philip Jose Farmer built the Riverworld saga, and this volume collects its first two novels, the Hugo-winning To Your Scattered Bodies Go and The Fabulous Riverboat. I like this book a good deal and would happily read it again.
It rests on one of science fiction’s great high-concept ideas, executed with real imagination and historical flair. These opening books are the strongest of the series by a wide margin, and that matters, because the later volumes lose the thread badly.
Farmer’s concept stops you cold on scale alone. Not a city resurrected, or a world. The entire human species, every person who ever lived, set down together along one impossible river.
One of SF’s great premises
The premise is the saga’s triumph, and it’s a magnificent one. The universal resurrection raises irresistible questions, who did this, and why, what does it mean for the billions now living a second life, and how do people from every era of human history interact when thrown together, and Farmer mines them with real imagination.
The first novel follows the real Victorian explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton, the man who searched for the source of the Nile, as he begins to probe the mystery of the Riverworld and its hidden makers, and the sheer conceptual audacity, history’s entire cast given a second life along an endless waterway, generates exactly the sense of wonder and possibility that makes high-concept SF thrilling. The idea alone is worth the price of admission.
Keep reading
High-concept fiction: building a story on one huge idea: Farmer’s universal-resurrection premise, in the craft of the big-idea story.
History as a playground
The saga’s most distinctive pleasure is its use of real historical figures, pulled from every era and culture and set loose to interact. Farmer populates the Riverworld with real people from across human history.
Burton. Mark Twain in the second novel. A vast supporting cast. The fun is watching figures who never could have met thrown together, forced to build new lives and societies. It’s an original delight.
For a writer it shows how a speculative premise becomes an engine. Character, history, and human nature explored at once, with a fantastic setup staging encounters and questions no realistic story could reach.
Keep reading
World-building from a single impossible premise: Farmer’s Riverworld, in the craft of extrapolating a whole world from one idea.
My gripes, and the hero problem
It’s a little slow in spots, the pacing sags here and there as the story wanders, and it can feel somewhat all over the place instead of tightly driven. My bigger reservation is the protagonist.
Burton is an interesting historical figure, but I’m not sure he was the right choice to lead this story; the book never quite settles around him the way it should, and a different central character might have given the saga a stronger spine. None of this stops me from liking the book, and the premise and the historical mix get it past the rough patches, but it keeps the first volumes short of the very top even for me.
Farmer’s prose, too, is serviceable instead of beautiful; the concept is what keeps you reading.
Where the saga goes wrong
The most important thing to know going in: these first two books are the good part, and the follow-up volumes lose the track. A premise this enormous is far easier to launch than to resolve, and as the series goes on Farmer increasingly defers and complicates its central mysteries in ways that wander and disappoint, so the later books rate much lower than these openers.
If you read and love the premise here, temper your expectations for where the saga goes, because it doesn’t pay off the way these strong first novels promise. I’d rate the opening volumes collected here an eight; the sequels, considerably less.
Is Riverworld worth reading?
It’s a strong, imaginative pairing of the first two Riverworld novels, built on one of science fiction’s great high-concept premises and enlivened by the inspired device of resurrecting real historical figures to interact across the ages. I like it, I’d read it again, and I rate these opening books an eight, held just short of higher by some slow stretches, a wandering quality, and a protagonist in Burton who never quite centers the story.
The important caveat is the saga as a whole: the follow-up books lose the thread and rate well below these, so enjoy the strong beginning for what it is. A magnificent idea, very well begun, and worth reading for the premise even knowing the larger series wanders.
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