Riverworld
| Riverworld | |
|---|---|
| Planet type | planet |
| Created by | Philip José Farmer |
| First appearance | To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971) |
Riverworld is a fictional planet and the setting for a series of science fiction books written by Philip José Farmer (1918–2009). Riverworld is an artificial environment where all humans (and pre-humans) are reconstructed. The books explore interactions of individuals from many different cultures and time periods. Its underlying theme is quasi-religious: Who did this? Why? How? The motivations of alien intelligences operating under ultra-ethical motives are explored.
The five novels in the series are as follows:
There are also several Riverworld short stories. The first of these appeared in Farmer's anthology:
In the early 1990s, it was decided to turn Riverworld into a shared universe anthology series, with numerous authors being invited to participate. Only two volumes were released:
Set millennia in the future, the Riverworld is an Earthlike planet, terraformed to consist solely of a single long river-valley. The river's source is a small North Polar sea, from which it follows a course tightly zig-zagging across one hemisphere before flowing into another, along an equally labyrinthine path, to the same sea. The river has an average depth of 1.5 miles, and is shallow near the shore but plunges to enormous depths towards the channel. The banks are generally smooth and gentle, expanding into wide plains on either side, then assuming jagged hills before an impenetrable mountain range. The valley averages 9 miles in width, but includes narrows and occasional widenings into lakes with islands. From source to mouth, the river is 20 million miles long (Books I, II, & III state the river is 10 million miles long). There are no seasons, and daily variations are metronomic. The only animal life consists of fish and soil worms. The vegetation is lush and of great variety, including trees, flowering vines, several kinds of fast-growing bamboo, and a resilient mat of grass which covers the plains. The Riverworld has no visible moon, but a great number of stellar objects in the sky, including gas sheets and stars close enough to show a visible disk.
The story of Riverworld begins when 36,006,009,637 humans, varying from the first Homo sapiens until the early 21st century, are simultaneously resurrected along the river. Of these, 20% are from the 20th century, due to the high population thereof. Originally the cut-off year was given as 1983 (still a speculative date when the novels were first published); but this later was modified to 2008. Purportedly, the cut-off indicated the point at which most of the human race had been purposefully annihilated by first contact with aliens visiting Earth. The protagonists later find this a creative fiction, produced by the masterminds of the resurrection.
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