Riverworld - a travel through past, present, future and fantasy

Riverworld is a planet, created by someone - who they are must be up to you, the reader, to discover. This planet consists of one large river going from the south pole to the north pole (the concept of poles are used to make it clear, how it looks). The river winds all way around the planet, making it extremely long. Between the river banks are very high mountains, unforceable in size. So it is not possible to travel from one bank to another by climbing over. And now the odd thing, and what makes an intriguing scenery: along this river, every soul ever alive on earth are reborn!

In the Riverworld books we meet a lot of history's wellknown characters. People like Mark Twain, Sir Francis Richard Burton, and also bad guys like Hermann Göring.

Welcome to a journey through history, future and fantasy. Oh, and of course the main character sets out to figure out who did this, and why!

In the first book everybody alive on earth, ever, from 5 years old and up is revied along the River in a body aged 25, but with all their memory from past life on Earth. We are talking someting along the line of 37 billion people.

The main character is Sir Richard Francis Burton. He soon sets his mind on finding out, who did this. In this book he doesn't, but he does discover some secrets.

He travels to several places on the river and learns about people, and how they rebuild societies, and fight wars. Burton also meets his "soul companion", a historic character that just seems to be, whereever Burton is.

On Riverworld you can not die, or actually you can, but you are resurrected in a new spot next morning.

We have left Richard Burton to himself. But we do meet some of his mates as well in this book. Sam Clemens, aka Mark Twain, has a dream that he is going to do anything to live out: build a boat noone ever has seen and never will see again on Riverworld. Luck strikes, or actually someone helps luck by allowing a meteor to crash close enough to Sam. Now there are metals on the planet. A big limitation up to now!

Metals are useful, and neighbours want in on the deal as well. Sam and John (Lackland aka Prince John) must go through a lot of trouble and make delicate political decisions to defend their land, and finish the boat.

A mysterious stranger contacts Sam and discloses some information, but nothing much useful.

After the Riverboat is finished and launched, the people left behind start building a blimp. The blimp can go high enough to pass over the mountains dividing the shores of the River, hence travel to the North Pole in a straight line, a much shorter path than following the winding river.

Life along the River has also changed and become a lot more valuable. We spend a lot of time with Peter Frigate and meet some other of Earth's great authors.

The blimp, Parseval, makes it to the North Pole of Riverworld, but things are not just over with that. A sinister plan seems to unfold soon.

Old friends meet again. Now the planet seems to be falling apart. Some of the grailstones stop working, and a in bloodbath of epic dimensions 17 billion (give and take) people are killed in 24 hours.

A large battle between the river boats and a long journey to the tower concludes the story.

What has happened to the rulers of this world? Who are in charge, and how many are actually agents and not just resurrected earthlings?

Many questions arise in the fourth book, and answers are in there, too.

Burton, Frigate and the rest of the crew that got to the Tower are still there. The accompanying ethical is now gone. However, it seems that there are still someone else in the tower.

Using the Tower Computer to resurrect people in the tower, creating new societies.

Sci-Fi Channel owns the right to do a tv series on Riverworld. However, only a pilot episode has ever been recorded and aired. You can find information about the Riverworld DVD on IMDB.com. Also watch a few scenes uploaded to YouTube below.

A computer game has been released as well by Cryo Interactive in 1998. Here are reviews on the GameOver website

Steven Jackson Games has released a roleplaying game book, GURPS (=Generic Universal Role Playing System) Riverworld. Read an article on the game book here at Steven Jackson Games.

Other sci-fi writers have teamed up, and written stories in PJF's universe, and released them in compilations together with other PJF short stories. The wikipedia pages and pjfarmer.com (links below), lists these books.