The book itself is good. It's part of a series that is a single story, so the ending isn't the end, and therefore somewhat unsatisfying. I assume that will resolve itself as I finish the series. But I've been meaning to rant about 'introductions' for quite some time now, and the introduction to this edition had everything I dislike about 'introductions'. For starters, do publishers really think readers of popular fiction care to read the comments of some random stranger? Most people I know don't like to read them, and don't find anything useful in them.Note to publishers: Unless you're publishing the 400th anniversary edition of Shakespeare's First Folio, don't waste the paper.Many introductions contain spoilers. In the internet age, we've come to terms with this somewhat. Here on Goodreads.com, there's a built in function for warning readers that a review contains spoilers. I like that, and there's a good reason for it. Many readers like to be surprised by a book's content. It boggles my mind that publishers don't understand this. If I wanted to read a synopsis of the book before I read the book, I'd buy the Cliff's notes. But I don't want that. I want the book to unfold with all of the suspense, or lack thereof, that the author intended. If the author had wanted me to know up front that Tommy dies at the end of the fourth chapter, or that the book ends with a wedding between the main characters, I'm sure he would have told me that himself. Authors hide things purposely to create suspense. The plot is better for it.The introduction to this book doesn't merely content itself with spoiling "The Fabulous Riverboat." It goes on to include spoilers about the entire series of books, and then branches off into spoilers about completely unrelated works by the same author. Note to publishers: don't include spoilers. It circumvents the author's intentions, devaluing the quality and impact of the writing.Now, on to the subject of literary criticism. There are very intelligent and dedicated individuals who live and breathe literary criticism. There are other intelligent and dedicated individuals who believe that literary criticism is a bunch of unmitigated hogwash. As with many things, my opinion falls somewhere in between. Literary criticism has it's place. It is useful and interesting to debate what makes something great literature, or whether something IS great literature, or how the themes of literature are affected by time, place, and social conditions. But where many literary critics cross the line is where the begin to insist that there is a 'right' interpretation and a 'wrong' interpretation. Overt themes may be obvious to all readers. Less obvious themes, and opinions about literary merit are subject to more subtle interpretation that is as varied, and as personal, as the readers themselves.One unusual feature of this introduction is that Farmer was allowed to read it, and include his responses as footnotes at the end. It was no surprise to me that Farmer points out several things that the author of the introduction had got completely wrong, not just in this book, but in Farmer's other works. This isn't the first time I've seen that. When I've heard authors respond to the critics, I've never heard one say "A really accurate description of what I was thinking. Almost spooky, like they can see inside my head while I'm writing."Note to publishers: literary criticism belongs in a literary magazine, or a college textbook. That's your target audience, not me.My advice? Read the book, but skip the introduction.
Revisit 2015 via audio file 09:04:17Description: In To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip José Farmer introduces readers to the awesome Riverworld, a planet that had been carved into one large river on whose shores all of humanity throughout the ages has seemingly been resurrected. In The Fabulous Riverboat, Farmer tells the tale of one person whose is uniquely suited to find the river's headwaters, riverboat captain and famous Earthly author Sam Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain). Clemens has been visited by "X," a mysterious being who claims to be a rebel among the group that created Riverworld. X tells Clemens where he can find a large deposit of iron and other materials that Clemens can use to build the greatest riverboat ever seen. Since there is virtually no metal on the planet, it will also give Clemens an unbeatable edge when it comes to battling the various warlike societies that dominate the Riverworld.But Clemens is not alone in his quest for the iron, which arrives on the planet in the form of a giant meteorite. In fact, Clemens is besieged on all sides by forces determined to seize the precious ore, leading him to make a deadly pact with one of history's most notorious villains, John Lackland. Lackland's crimes during his reign as king of England were so hideous that no other English monarch will ever carry his name, and he's up to equally nefarious tricks on Riverworld. However, Clemens has a guardian angel in the form of Joe Miller, a giant subhuman with a big nose, a serious lisp, and a cutting wit. Miller has also been to the very headwaters of the river, where he saw a mysterious tower in the middle of the North Sea and where the creators of Riverworld are thought to reside. He will be an invaluable ally in completing the riverboat and sailing to the headwaters, but even an 800-pound giant may not be enough to help Clemens fulfill X's mission. --Craig E. EnglerThese books are standing the test of time, in fact more enjoyable because of the increased knowledge of historical personages over a reading life. Found it exquisite fun that Lackland and Arthur meet. X is enticing too - imagine being able to send a meteorite at will. River as ouroborosSamuel ClemensEric BloodaxeJohn Lackland, AND...Arthur I, Duke of BrittanyLothar von RichthofenCyrano de BergeracOlivia Langdon ClemensAuthor Samuel Longhorne Clemens, better known under his pen name, Mark TwainNEWS 04.05.2015: Hundreds of reports by Mark Twain, describing life in San Francisco for a newspaper in Nevada, have been unearthed by scholars at Berkeley. Source5* To Their Scattered Bodies GoCR The Fabulous Riverboat (Riverworld, #2)The Dark Design (Riverworld, #3)The Magic Labyrinth (Riverworld, #4)The Gods of Riverworld (Riverworld #5)
What do You think about The Fabulous Riverboat (1998)?
This was a very different book from the straight up action/adventure novel that is To Your Scattered Bodies Go, and honestly, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much, for a few reasons. The thing which totally gutted my enjoyment of the plot was the blatant, frustrating racism in the characterization of the Soul City citizens in general, and Elwood Hacking in particular. Hacking's every decision is reactionary and irrational; his speech is rambling and unclear; his "reverse racism" is so over-the-top a
—Lauren Donoho
The Fabulous Riverboat (1971) 256 pages by Philip Jose Farmer.This is like chapter two in Riverworld. It's in the same setting as To Your Scattered Bodies Go, but it follows a second set of characters and doesn't come to a conclusion. No it ends like it was chapter two.The premise of riverworld is that some alien species has taken every human being who ever died on Earth and resurected them on the planet of riverworld. Each person woke up naked and with a bucket. The planet consists of one endless river, with the terrain being pretty much the same on both sides of the river. A valley about 10 miles wide, ending at unscalable mountain cliff, and the river in the middle. Along the river every mile is a grailstone. People put their buckets or grails, on the grailstone at regular intervals of the day (like breakfast, lunch and dinner), and the grails will then be filled with food, liquor, tobacco, dreamgum, a towel, etc.Each little area is stocked with 60% of it's population from one time & place, 30% from another and 10% random. When a person is killed in riverworld they are resurrected the next day somewhere else on the river.Since the world contains everyone who has ever lived, Farmer is having some fun by making many of his characters actual historical figures. The first book follows Sir Richard Francis Burton, in real life an English explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist, linguist, poet, hypnotist, fencer and diplomat. So he gets the people in his land to build a boat an he explores the river. Of course as he's traveling other lands are making technological improvements, and his boat eventually gets captured or sunk.Riverboat picks up with Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) traveling on a boat with Bloodaxe and a bunch of eleveth century norsemen. With Sam is his riverworld friend Joe Miller. OK, somehow Farmer came up with the idea that in the very distant past there was a race of humans that was gorilla size or bigger. Joe is of that race, has a huge nose and talks with a lithp, er lisp.Sam has an ambition of building a riverboat, but there is no or very little metal on this planet. As they are travelling a meterorite hits the planet just miles from where they are. The rest of the book is taken up with there struggles to build Sam's dream boat. The struggles being claiming the land where the meteorite hit, finding people to mine for the ore, then refine it. It isn't very long before the neighboring states are inhabited.To Your Scattered Bodies Go wasn't that much better of a book, it won the Hugo, but it was. That book introduced riverworld and different cultures that develop all the river, such as grail slavery -- keeping someone just alive enought so that they can use that person's grail. It was original. The first couple of chapters when they first wake up on riverworld, that can't be replicated.It is good enough that I had to go find book three, The Dark Design, off my shelf and start reading it.
—John Loyd
All of humanity has been resurrected along the shores of The Riverworld, though no one knows why. Guided by a rebel from among the ranks of those who created the place, Sam Clemens and his friends build a riverboat like the ones from Clemens' Mississippi days to search out the headwaters of the river and the mysterious castle which is rumored to exist there. In the process, they build a nation and become involved in war and intrigue with their neighbors.I was enjoying this novel. The prose is unexceptional, but efficient and workmanlike, and Farmer tells a decent story in an interesting setting. Then Farmer introduces the neighboring state of Soul City and its leader, Elwood Hacking, and derails the whole thing. Hacking is a former slave who is founding an all-black state where "soul brothers and soul sisters can loaf and invite their souls." He is irrational and reactionary. One of his final acts is to rape a white woman and a passage describing them glimpsed in a window together contrasts the woman's "long honey-colored hair and very white skin" with "the bushy hair and black face of Elwood Hacking" in a very distasteful way. Given his fair treatment of other black characters such as Hugo Firebrass and Jill Gulbirra (from the next book in the series), I am not convinced that Farmer is an unqualified racist, but I was puzzled and disquieted by this aspect of the novel.
—David B
