The Fabulous Riverboat (Riverworld 2)
We exchange Richard Burton for Samuel Clemens and set the story a couple decades past "Resurrection Day", when all of humanity (and then some) who ever lived wake up naked on the shores of an impossibly long river.
Clemens, or Mark Twain, has a dream of finding iron. Riverworld seems to have been intentionally deprived of all natural resources with the exception of water and fish from the river and stands of trees along the banks and some quarry-able stone. But Clemens wants to build a big ol' fabulous riverboat so he too can get to the bottom of the mysteries that surround the creation and purpose of Riverworld. The exploits of Richard Burton in 'To All Your Scattered Bodies Go' are the subject of rumor and legend. This goes against the growing "church" of the second chance, which believes that Riverworld was made to provide all the basic needs of humanity and allow them to turn their thoughts towards self-improvment instead of war and greed.
In pursuit of his goal Clemens must ally himself with King John (Lackland) and reunites with his pasteboard wife and meets a pasteboard with a sword named Cyrano de Bergerac. An odd cameo was Frederick Rolfe as a toady of John's.
The book has about the same amount of pages as the previous one but it seemed to take a lot longer. There was a lot of politicking between Clemens & King John's "state" and a neighboring "state" of black separatists that was probably timely in 1972, but is now just absurd. That heaped on top of more sexism (despite the prescene of a Soviet female engineer, such largess!) made this seem like a good place to leave Riverworld because I hear the books just keep getting worse.
Riverworld
Next: 'The Dark Design'
Previous: 'To Your Scattered Bodies Go'
