The Fabulous Riverboat (The Riverworld series) [Paperback]

"The Fabulous Riverboat" is the second installment in Philip José Farmer's "Riverworld" series. The basic idea behind the series is that every human being who has ever lived is mysteriously resurrected on Riverworld, a planet whose surface consists of an immense river valley several million miles long. The first book, "To Your Scattered Bodies Go", narrated the adventures of the resurrected Richard Burton, the Victorian writer, adventurer and explorer. The central character of "The Fabulous Riverboat" is another colourful 19th century figure, Sam Clemens, the American author better known to us as Mark Twain.

During his earthly life, Clemens was, for a time, the captain of a Mississippi riverboat, and his great ambition on Riverworld is to build a similar boat in which to explore the planet's great river and, if possible, to find out who was responsible for creating this strange world and for the resurrection of humanity. His task of building a suitable boat, however, is hampered by the shortage of metals on Riverworld and by the political rivalries between the many small kingdoms into which the planet is divided.

One of the advantages of Farmer's "Riverworld" concept is that it enables him to imagine interactions between famous historical figures from all periods of human history, even if those figures were not contemporaries of one another during their earthly lives. ("How would Richard Burton have got on with Hermann Goering?") In "The Fabulous Riverboat" Clemens's main adversary is a character from some seven centuries before his time, King John Lackland of England; the two find themselves for a time joint rulers of the Kingdom of Parolando, although their relationship is never an easy one. (The name "Parolando" means "Pair Land"- or possibly "Twain Land"- in Esperanto, which has become an unofficial lingua franca of Riverworld). Other historical characters in the novel include the Viking chieftain Eric Bloodaxe, the German aviator Lothar von Richthofen (brother of the more famous Manfred), the French writer Cyrano de Bergerac (Clemens's rival for the affections of his terrestrial wife, Livy) and the Greek hero Odysseus. Goering, the main villain of the first novel but now a convinced pacifist following a religious conversion, makes another appearance. The main non-historical figure is a Neanderthal giant whom Clemens, unable to pronounce his real name, calls Joe Miller.

Like a number of science-fiction and alternate-world novels, this one includes a certain amount of satire on the writer's own times. The complex web of shifting alliances between Parolando and its neighbouring states may have been devised as a comment on real-world diplomacy, particularly as the book was published at the height of the Cold War, and twentieth-century racial politics are satirised through the black nationalist kingdom of "Soul City", a place whose leader is obsessed with creating an ethnically pure all-black state.

"The Fabulous Riverboat" is, of course, a work of fantasy rather than history, so it is not surprising that, for the sake of his story, Farmer takes a few liberties with strict historical fact. Contrary to what he states, there was never any collective decision by the English people never to have another King named John; during the later Middle Ages there were several Royal princes of that name who, had history taken a different course, could have become King John II. Farmer's Cyrano bears a closer resemblance to Edmond Rostand's fictionalised character than to the real individual of that name. Odysseus was probably a mythical character rather than a real person. Neanderthals were not giants; they were, in fact, rather shorter on average than modern humans.

Farmer seems to be better at creating male characters than female ones. Neither Alice Liddell, the main female character of "To Your Scattered Bodies Go", nor Livy emerges as a rounded individual in her own right in the way that Richard Burton and Sam Clemens do. Clemens in particular comes across as an engaging figure, part adventurer, part idealist, part trickster, and it is following his adventures that makes "The Fabulous Riverboat" such an entertaining read.

This is the second instalment of the Riverworld series. While I found the first one interesting and enjoyed it, the spark of mystery is missing from its sequel, leaving it to disintegrate into an odd mishmash of historical, science fiction fanfiction.

In the first novel, every human from prehistory until the late 20th century have awoken on the banks of a world with an endless river. In the sequel, the protagonist is Samuel Clemens (yes, that Samuel Clemens) and he goes down the river with various other historical figures, such as a Nazi War criminal and King John Lackland of Robin Hood fame. I find it very annoying that only the famous people of history ever interact together. Where are the billions of people who did not shift history? They are a faceless, voiceless background.

In the first book, I was curious to know why they were there and who was responsible for providing them with food and other materials needed for survival. The mystery was solved in the first book and is not explored enough in the second.

The resurrected society is adapting and shifting, however. In the first book, people had few resources at their disposal. For at least a third of the book they were naked because they had nothing to clothe themselves with. Now, they are learning how to mine resources from the Earth and bring back the technology they enjoyed in the later part of Earth's history.

In this story, Sam lands in Paralando, a predominantly African and African-American land. Of course, race is naturally a predominant theme in the book, and while it is a little heavy-handed, it is pertinent to the 70s, when the novel was written. While Farmer still has misogyny rife within the novel (one character is very shocked and amazed at the notion of a female engineer. Incroyable!), Farmer urges for equality and a lack of racism on both sides (Paralando is trying to get rid of inhabitants that are anything other than black).

Overall, while it's still an interesting setting, it did not grab me enough to wish to continue with the series and the misogyny and constant focus on womens' bodies rather than their minds is beginning to grate on me. It's a shame as it's meant to be one of the greats, but in my opinion it has not aged well.