To Your Scattered Bodies Go: Philip Jose Farmer

[knivesout]

Philip Jose Famer's 1971 novel-length debut is a widely succesful, and much-loved SF classic. It won the 1972 Hugo for Best Novel and spawned a succesful series of linked novels set in the Riverworld.

So what is it all about? The concept is simple, and sweeping. All of humanity - including near-human cavemen and even the odd extraterrestrial - has been resurrected and now finds itself scattered along the banks of a vast, seemingly endless river. Access to other parts of this world is guarded by sheer mountain ranges, so the resurrectees start to build a new life along the river, or rather, The River. The people - there are no animals and few children among them - have young, unscarred bodies, in peak physical condition, and are initially hairless, suggesting that they were regenerated from scratch, rather than literally reanimated. Food, clothing and the essential vices of tobacco, weed and alcohol, as well as a troublesome narcotic chewing gum, are provided almost magically by means of grail-like devices supplied to each of the resurrectees.

The story itself centers on the 19th century explorer, Richard Francis Burton. Always the man of action, Burton gathers together a disparate group of fellow-adventurers and sets off on an expedition to the source of a river mightier and more mysterious than even the Nile. With him are Alice Liddel Hargreaves - yes, that Alice, a caveman named Kazz and an alien named Monat, who somehow wiped out most of the human race in disaster that occured soon after the close of the 20th century. This fact turns out to be less significant than it would seem to be at first. Another member of Burton's party is Peter Frigate, possibly the author's own avatar in Riverworld.

Their expedition eventually leads them to a slave-nation ruled by none other than Hermann Goering, in collaboration with an early Roman tyrant. They are taken prisoner, and then manage to escape, freeing the slaves. All the while, Burton is haunted by an anomalous pre-resurrection memory of waking up in a sort of staging place, a vast, indistinct area containing a multitiude of naked human bodies - apparently the place where the resurrectees were stored before being placed on Riverworld. By finding the ultimate source of the river, he hopes to find out who has placed all these people here - and why.

Instead, he finds himself in one extremity after another, with the wily Goering emerging as a sort of recurring nemesis. This is where things start to go crazy. No one ever dies in Riverworld - instead, they are re-resurrected, at a random point along the course of the river. Burton begins to ride the Suicide Express, as he calls it, hoping to find the ultimate source and destination of The River. Goering, now falling prey to drug addiction and a sort of extreme existential angst, seems to keep re-apprearing along with Burton, as if they are soulmates in some strange way. In the meantime, Burton has communicated with a person who claims to be a renegade member of the far-future scientific project that has resurrected humanity. On the verge of transcendance, they have decided to resurrect all of humanity in order to give them a chance to grow in a spiritual sense, and transcend as well. The renegade feels that the whole project is nothing more than hubris and wrong-headed tampering. Burton continues to kill himself and pop up in ever-new locations, until the overseers of this enteprise intervene, and inform him that he is running out of reincarnations. They explain aspects of their enterprise to him - although the explanation fails to really make a lot of sense - and then place him back on Riverworld. Oddly, they have not wiped his memories, and Burton now has a greater understanding of why he is here. But, naturally, he won't stop trying to learn everything.

And that's it. Perhaps the further volumes take this further - or maybe they're just fun adventures, where reason and consequence are secondary to the thrill of it all. Certainly, this seems to be a book that's driven more by sheer imagination than a very coherent or significant core concept. It hardly struck me as a classic, and some passages were annoying in their sexism (no doubt a product of the times yada yada), while what exposition there was, seemed heavy-handed and not really meaningful.

It's an adventure story at heart, an odyssey through a fascinating, wonderful world. And this is the aspect of the book that works the best. The depiction of people from disparate historical epochs, and the interaction between them is fascinating and well-wrought, as well. All in all, a frothy entertainment, but not much science - or sense - to the fiction.

[Lacedaemonian]

That sounds fantastic!

[I, Brian]

That's a great premise - and great to see some familiar names.

[ommigosh]

I remember these books. Great idea and great fun. I seem to remember that Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) also appears as a fairly major character and a meek and mild guy called Yeshua also puts in an appearance as a slightly bewildered spectator instead of his normal saviour role. At some point in the series, Hermann Goering appears as multiple characters due to some glitch in the resurrection process.

[Sirathiel]

Funny enough, I've got the whole Riverworld Saga burrowed from a friend of mine. All I'm waiting for now is the time to read them! I can't wait!

[pearce]

I don't think I continued with the series, though I remember the first one well and it was fantastic.Burton was a great character.

[knivesout]

Originally Posted by ommigosh

I remember these books. Great idea and great fun. I seem to remember that Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) also appears as a fairly major character and a meek and mild guy called Yeshua also puts in an appearance as a slightly bewildered spectator instead of his normal saviour role. At some point in the series, Hermann Goering appears as multiple characters due to some glitch in the resurrection process.

Mark Twain is the main character in the second book. The Fabolous Riverboat. Goering's many incarnations take place in To Your Scatterred Bodies, although for all I know maybe he carries on in further volumes. Not sure which book Yeshua is in - whoever do you think Farmer might have modelled him on?

Sira - I look forward to hearing what you think of the books.

[Marianne]

I read this series about 30 years ago and it has remained one of my favs. I love all the historical characters. Another one of Farmer's that I have in my collection is Mother Was a Lovely Beast-adifferent take on the Tarzan story. I am a big E.R. Burrroughs fan.