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Summary: Excellent Sci-fi , can't wait to read the sequel.
Review: I read this book 20years ago and have not been able to find this book or it's sequel. Not remembering the authors name made it that much more difficult. Thanks to Yahoo my dream was made possible just by typing in the title, It has been like watching a vidio tape of a movie 20 years ago half way and not being able to find the tape until now. Thanks Yahoo.....
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Summary: Characters are historically acurate and well casted.
Review: I read this book ten years ago and have been trying to find it since. it is probably the most engrossing history lesson i have ever wanted to pay attention to. EVERYONE is there...what ?? This is one of the most amazing stories ever!
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Summary: Not as compelling as _To Your Scattered Bodies Go_
Review: In the second book of the Riverworld series, Sam Clemens aka Mark Twain has a single dream: build a majestic Riverboat to sail to the headwaters of the mighty river and find the ones responsible for Resurrection. Although the story is first rate, I found the pacing mediocre. Clemens is given a revelation from a "Mysterious Stranger" at the very beginning of the book, and nothing more is forthcoming; I found that this early climax robbed the rest of the book of some of its punch. Also, toward the end, there are two major time-shifts which are totally out of place. But the rest is quite enjoyable.
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Summary: To journey up the great River
Review: In this, the second of The Riverworld series, Samuel Clemens, joined by Viking, Erik Bloodaxe undertake to find a source of iron great enough to build a Riverboat by which to navigate to the headwaters of the Riverworld and there to asertain the purpose for which they were all resurected.The Stranger who has helped various individuals along with information in the first book continues to help, and lends his assistance in delivering an enormous supply of iron in reach of Clemens's team. Undertaking thier great project, the newfounded city faces trials from within and without. Neighboring city-states want to take over the source of iron for themselves, and Samuel Clemens must think quick to avoid trechery, even comiting trechery of his own to achive his goals. Not as great as the first book, and it draggs a bit, but still enjoyable.
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Summary: awe some----cant put it down
Review: makes u wanna buy em all at once
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Summary: fairly enjoyable pulp
Review: not much more to say. It's pulp, but good enjoyable stuff. Books 1 and 2 are vastly superior because, not despite this. Their origins in the serial magazine world show and are delightful. Books 3,4,5 suffer because PJF tends to believe he is a far far better writer than he is, and overwrite if not severely edited
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Summary: Fascinating instalment to the series
Review: Once you have become familiar the Riverworld concept, having read " To Your Scattered Bodies Go", this second book really is fascinating. It deals with how Mark Twain interacts with treacherous characters such as rotten King John, as well as his earthly wife Livy(who is now in love with Cyrano de Bergerac)as he pursues his dream of building the Boat which will take him to the headwaters of the River, in order to solve the mystery of the Riverworld. Farmer excels in bringing these characters to life, and shows his excellent grasp of human nature in his portrayal of the wars of neighbouring nations, and the fights for supremacy that really would occur in this scenario. Using real life characters somehow even adds more realism to this amazing tale. Farmer's imagination is unparalleled, and the Riverworld series is a must for anyone with a sense of wonder.
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Summary: Take a trip on the neverending river...
Review: The second book in Farmer's imaginative Riverworld series is better written although the plotting can occasionally still be a bit haphazard. Like To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Riverboat was originally serialized prior to publication. Despite some rewriting by Farmer, the second novel's pacing is inconsistent. The characters, like the first novel, are interesting and imaginatively portrayed. A fair warning, however, since most of these characters are from the 19 or early 20th Centuries, they aren't the most enlightened males. There's a hint of misogny and sexism at the core of many of these characters. I don't believe that reflects Farmer's point of view. Instead, it reflects the attitude and era of the male characters. What compounds this minor flaw, though, is the fact that Farmer couldn't convincingly write a strong female character(a problem that dogged the first novel). Here he primarily sticks to the male characters and the novel benefits from it. Sam Clemens (aka Mark Twain), like Richard Burton, is intent on discovering the source of the great river and identifying the people who resurrected humanity. His companions include Joe Miller a brutish prehuman giant who, surprisingly, shows more humanity than most of Clemens' friends; World War 1 flying ace Von Richthofen who provides a sense of balance to Clemens' dark view of humanity and Erik Bloodaxe a harsh and cruel viking that is has Clemens as a member of his crew chiefly because Clemens claims to know a source for iron. Clemens goal is to build a marvelous riverboat that will help him achieve his goal of discovering the motives of X the mysterious stranger who appears out of nowhere to help him (just as he did Burton) in his quest and why they've all been returned to life. A couple of points--1) Keep in mind that this was written in the late 60's and published as a novel in 1971. It's of its era but the writing and themes have aged surprisingly well. 2) Although it wasn't designed with adolescent males in mind necessarily, that was the primary audience for the original piece. The attitudes and writing style occasionally demonstrates these elements. Regardless, this is a fun series and still highly regarded for a number of good reasons. Farmer's novels and his ability with female characters would improve with later installments. By the time of the third volume The Dark Design, most of the flaws that dogged the first two installments had been overcome. The Riverworld series is still a well written series. While the series lost much of its power by the fifth and final book, there were still enough ideas floating around in one book that a lesser novelist would have made into 10 or 20 novels. In the series driven novels that have overtaken the science fiction genre, Farmer's novels, like Frank Herbert's, were written out of a love for the material not out of commerce. This attitude prevails even in the lesser books of this interesting and engaging series. My only complaint with the latest editions are no comments or observations by Farmer 30 years after their initial publication. When these were first published (in 1998) Farmer was still going strong and working on a number of new novels and projects. On a side note it's a pity that the Science Fiction Channel ruined the first adaption of Farmer's novels. Riverworld was a mess where Burton was replaced by a 21st Century astronaut (obviously those teenagers wouldn't be able to relate to someone as obscure as Sir Richard Francis Burton!). It was a horror unlike the adaption of Herbert's first three novels.
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Summary: excelent! merge science fiction, philosophy and history
Review: This book is a must! I not only enjoyed it a lot with its fantasy and fiction, but I learnt history and many philosopical new questions arised to me! I really recomend it if you want to spend a good time and you want to think in the same moment!
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Summary: Series gaining strength as it continues
Review: This is Farmer's second offering in his outstanding Riverworld series, five books that must be read together in sequence for the whole story. He continues to develop this fabulous world of a millions mile long river, snaking around and around a planet, hemmed in on each side by unscaleable mountains which force all to live in the river valley. Into this artificially formed world, all humanity who ever lived and died has been resurrected, with no clue as to the how or why, or by whom. The books in the series tell the stories of those who are driven to find answers to those mysteries.
In 'The Fabulous Riverboat', Farmer leaves for a while the quest of his protagonist from the first book, Sir Richard Burton, and focuses on another fascinating 19th century personality - Samuel Clemens, AKA Mark Twain. Clemens is driven by a dream of finding iron on this mineral-poor planet from which he can build a riverboat such as he piloted on Earth, to take him to the headwaters of the river where emerging clues seem to indicate answers can be found to this confounding after-life. The Clemens we meet here is bitter, angry, and filled with guilt, and his ultimate motivation is to find those responsible for the mass resurrection of humanity, and to strike whatever blow he can against them in retaliation for bringing him back from the peace of the grave. With the help of a powerful "Mysterious Stranger", who may be a renegade member of the race responsible for this resurrection and Riverworld, Clemens is able to find the minerals he needs, and to form a colony dedicated to the project of building his fabulous riverboat.
Complications abound, however. The first and greatest is a partnership of necessity that Clemens must form with the deceitful and despicable King John Lackland, the most notorious of all the old kings of England. Then there is the need to concentrate on developing the military might to hold and defend this unique area of the river that contains the minerals necessary to fulfilling his dream. And finally, there is Sam's personal, guilt-ridden agony over making the hard, amoral choices that have to be made if he is going to succeed in his quest.
The strength of these books lie in the opportunities that the premise provides for having historical persons from widely different periods interact with each other. In 'The Fabulous Riverboat', we meet Lothar von Richthofen, brother and flying comrade of the Red Baron, Erik Bloodaxe, 10th century Viking leader, Odysseus, Cyrano de Bergerac, Hitler's toady Herman Goring, mountain man "Liver Eating" Johnson and more. Together with some well-drawn original characters, these make for a fascinating story.
This book does not suffer as much from stilted writing as did the first book of the series, but I still would describe the writing style as merely competent. The characters and story are the strength of the book, and more than sufficient to provide both the thrills and intellectual stimulation to make reading it worthwhile.
After taking you on a thrill-ride of battles, assassinations, double crosses, and assorted intrigue, 'The Fabulous Riverboat' will leave you with a cliff-hanging ending that should send you scrambling to read the next book in the series (The Dark Design).
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