To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Riverworld Saga, Book 1

Read it many years ago, and it was still a fun read. A little mix of history meeting some famous characters. I certainly hope this is not the way the afterlife works, but maybe better than nothing as I expect it would be.

After hearing that the Sci-Fi channel was doing a mini-series based on this book, and that it was a Hugo award winner, I decided see what the big deal was. I was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining this novel is.PJ Farmer wrote an interesting blend of historical/science fiction (or speculative fiction as he might call it). He took characters from many different sections of history and tosses them into interesting scenarios on the Riverworld. The book tends to alternate between descriptions of the the artificial planet Riverworld and how it seems to work, descriptions of encountered characters and their place in our real-world history, action scenes, and plot advancements which involve the characters' investigation of the Riverworld, and why they, along with the 33 billion other humans who ever lived, suddenly woke up on the banks of the snaking river.I bought the first book online, and finished it in a night and a day. Promptly after, I order the other four in the series. They've all been fun, and educational. I think I've learned more about history in the past two weeks reading the Riverworld series than I did in the past three years since I graduated from college.

I just finished reading all 5 volumes in this series and had to offer a review.Book 1 starts off tremendous (!!) and offers up a good mystery - why are millions of people resurrected on an alien planet???Book 2-4 spends grossly too much time delving into the history of the characters and not enough time getting to the Tower and the Ethicals. On a number of occasions, Mr. Farmer seems desperate to display the historical knowledge he has labored over.Book 5 really grapples with the issues from book 1 and is the second best book of the series.Book 3 was just awful in my opinion. Wayyyyyyyyy too much history of characters, it was like watching wood warp. I almost stopped reading the entire thing over book 3.Overall, in my opinion, the series would have been much better working the mystery of the Ethicals and a whole lot less time with the history of various people. It was a great opportunity squandered.

I would not recommend that you read the "Riverworld" series. Or at least, if you do, only read the first three books.This is because the evanescent wonder and joy of the first couple of volumes gives way to the enduring rage and disappointment of the final two.Without giving away too much, I will say that the explanations you're given for the "big mystery" will prove infuriating (to say the least) since the questions you want answered are not answered in any satisfying way, and many more questions arise for which there are no answers forthcoming.The whole time I was reading it, I kept thinking, "Goodness! This is delightful! But there's got to be one heck of an explanation waiting for me down the road."But there wasn't. Arrrghghghgh.

Well I recall reading this 20 or 30 years ago I can't recall how I felt about it but now remembering this is like a real man fantasy sci-fi wet dream. Like all men and women wake up nude and without hair in the afterlife all restored to a youthful age of 25 year olds. So there is that, sometimes, the situations seemed a little forced and hooky but overall there is a quality to the story that is deeper and just a bit whimsy so I guess it still deserves the designation of a classic Sci-fi book. I was entertained.

I picked this up because it was the book pick of the month. I have been trying really hard to get through it, but it is tough…. I find it to be a boring read

Thanks for this book

One of the most unique and original SF concepts ever. Tons of fun to read and exceptional in its inventiveness, and ability to make you ponder your own trials and tribulations along the "river of life".

This novel was awarded the Hugo Award for best novel in 1972 and is the first book in the Riverworld series. Although it is about life after death, it is very much a science fiction novel: the afterlife involves bodily resurrection achieved using techniques of super-science. Another notable feature is that actual historical figures appear as characters; and there is even a nod to Farmer’s technique of using fictional characters created by other authors (one character is a medieval member of the Greystoke family of Tarzan and physically resembles Burroughs’ hero).Sir Richard Francis Burton, the Victorian explorer, translator and writer, is surprised to wake after death in a rejuvenated body suspended in a strange void filled with countless naked sleeping people. He soon wakes again to find himself reborn into a new world consisting of one great, meandering river valley hemmed in by uncrossable mountains. He is not alone: everyone who had ever lived on earth is also reborn into this world. There are even a few aliens, members of the race responsible for the extinction of humankind in the twenty-first century. The adventurer Burton soon gathers a group around him and persuades them to construct a raft to search for the source of the World River and attempt to uncover the secrets of this new life. The rest of the novel describes Burton’s adventures, including encounters with other historical personages, such as the real-life Alice who inspired Alice in Wonderland and the Nazi leader Goring, and even eventually the creators of the Riverworld.The premise of the novel is original and strong, and the opening chapters use this well. If a historical protagonist is going to be used, Burton seems a logical choice, an intellectually gifted adventurer who in life looked for the source of the Nile and who was also a superb linguist. Overall though the novel had flaws I have noted in other things by Farmer I have read. The excellent idea and good early chapters give way to rather perfunctory action and unsubtle plot development. Aside from Burton, the characters are not well developed and are difficult to care about. The use of historical characters and cultures also seems rather perfunctory and superficial. Farmer has arguably given himself a big canvas to work on but not enough pages to do it justice. For me the novel had a great idea, an intriguing beginning and good start; but ultimately it was disappointing and somehow lacking magic. The book does have a great title, which is taken from the seventeenth century poet John Donne.

I read this series years ago in paperback and wondered if it would hold up now that I'm 40. Well, it does. It's well written, full of interesting ideas like all those great pulp sci-fi novels of the 60's and 70's and it makes for a good easy read, perfect for on a plane or on holiday.I think one issue these old books had is that they had to fit into a small page-count but the editors demanded a lot of action and interest throughout which is fine, but this novel and the themes and even scenes therein could have been explored in more detail. The story moves a bit TOO fast and the characters don't really get much chance to be fully fleshed out.So it's a strong 4 star book that could have been 5 stars if it had been just a little slower paced.Now I'm going to look for the rest of series in pulp paperback because £4.99 seems a tad high for the Kindle versions.

This is an original book, told in an engaging way that keeps you turning the pages from the moment you start reading. It's kinda post apocalyptic in as much as everyone has to fend for themselves and start from scratch in a new environment, and it also looks at ideas of the afterlife and different perceptions of heaven. It is fascinating to read about the different people and how they react to one another with different social conventions, and how they utilise the skills they used in their own periods of history. This is a great sci-fi novel, but once you start reading one, you're going to want to track down the complete series! Great Sci-fi!Feel free to check out my blog which can be found on my profile page.

This book, first in the riverworld series, was a Hugo award winner, which I'm slowly making my way through. After reading a number of slow and difficult 'new wave' books it's a pleasure to be into a streak of well written, exciting and unpretentious books that genuinely seek to entertain. This has some especially nice themes and the use of historical characters works well in the concept and the cliff-hanger actually does makes you want to pick up the next book. Highly recommended.

First read it when I was fourteen (along with the rest of the Riverworld books) and they had a deep and profound impact on my impressionable pubescent mind. Rereading 29 years later I am a little more critical. It has a real pulpy sci-fi charm, but it also has some significant flaws. Other than the implicit racism and explicit sexism (which I am happy to account to the time it was written) I found the plot holes distracting and the continual appearance of historical figures improbably. The obsession with Nazism can be explained by the post-war period it was first drafted I guess. That said, it was still enjoyable and a cut above much pulp sci-fi.