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    The Fabulous Riverboat
    The Fabulous Riverboat
    The Fabulous Riverboat
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Fabulous Riverboat

    Written by Philip Jose Farmer

    Narrated by Paul Hecht

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Resurrected on the lush, mysterious banks of Riverworld, along with the rest of humanity, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) has a dream: to build a riverboat that will rival the most magnificent paddle-wheelers ever navigated on the mighty Mississippi. Then, to steer it up the endless waterway that dominates his new home planet—and at last discover its hidden source.

    But before he can carry out his plan, he first must undertake a dangerous voyage to unearth a fallen meteor. This mission would require striking an uneasy alliance with the bloodthirsty Viking Erik Bloodaxe, treacherous King John of England, legendary French swordsman Cyrano de Bergerac, Greek adventurer Odysseus, and the infamous Nazi Hermann Göring. All for the purpose of storming the ominous stone tower at the mouth of the river, where the all-powerful overseers of Riverworld—and their secrets—lie in wait …
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJul 17, 2009
    ISBN9781440756610
    The Fabulous Riverboat
    Author

    Philip Jose Farmer

    Hugo award-winning author Philip José Farmer (1918-2009) was one of the great science fiction writers of the 20th Century, and the Riverworld books are generally considered his masterpiece. He lived in Peoria, Illinois.

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    Reviews for The Fabulous Riverboat

    3.5/5

    540 ratings18 reviews

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    • 4/5
      [reread 2020] I don't know why I've had "reviewer's block" so much lately, but I have. I've got a couple of other books that I've finished and need to review but ... So I try the Reader's Block trick of reading an old favorite, or one of a series. Is this dated? Oh, is that and understatement? The short-lived 1970s subcultures pop out here. (He also has Sam drinking "at least a fifth of ethyl alcohol mixed with fruit juice." - a measure long gone out of vogue.) Cliched? Well, sort of goes with he dated part. But it is still quite imaginative. And a mix of writing skill.When recounting a story within the story of a boat traveling upRiver, Farmer says of the narrowing of the River, "[n}ow and then, the line of mountains curved in toward each other, and the boat shot through canyons where the narrow passage forced the current to boil through..." So, tacking against the current and wind, the boat "shot" through?And then he has Sam Clemens say a brilliant thing now and the: "Of course, I'm only indulging in mankind's vice of trying to make a symbol out of coincidence" (Note to self: see if that shows up in any of Clemens's writings...stories or memoirs.)And astute observation, also maybe the real Clemens wrote about: when recalling the Chinese of Nevada and California in the early 1860s, Farmer had Clemens thinking "But the Chinese believed in time; time was the Chinese ally." So true today (Martin Jacques wrote a book titled "When China Rules the World" and observes the same patience, in contrast to the Western immediacy.)And on human nature: "Invincible ignorance always upset him [Clemens], even though he knew he should just laugh at it."I need to get to the other reviews, and finish a couple in progress before moving on to a reread of the third book. Sure. That's what I'll tell myself!
    • 3/5
      Oh FFS.Really?The only part of this that survived the decades well is the subplot about SamMark and his beloved, obsessed-over Livy. Be careful what you wish for in this life! (I actually mean "Riverworld life," though that hoary old saying is hoary and old because it never stops being true.) The "race relations" aren't new or trenchant, just tediously familiar. The modern then, well-trodden-trail now use of insomnia, depression, and drug use to self-medicate them is gloom-inducing. Heteronormative dreariness is de rigueur, tobacco use is unstigmatized, and the whole damned enterprise has at its core a frustrating reality: THIS IS A HUGE MISSED OPPORTUNITY. There's no essential difference between the various factions scrapping over bits and pieces. There's nothing, in short, new under this brand-new sun.But DAYUM is the Fabulous Riverboat a spiffy Maguffin. I don't think it's too much to say the ride is worth the journey if only just.
    • 4/5
      Good book two of the Riverworld Saga. Not quite as good as the first but still enjoying Farmers imagination. Look forward to book 3.
    • 3/5
      This is the second in the Riverworld series. King John is out to get Samuel Clemens. I've always liked John Plantagenet better than PJ Farmer does. Adequate entertainment.
    • 5/5
      This book is the second in the Riverworld series. More fantasy than Farmer's usual stuff but an interesting premise. Everyone has died and awakened somewhere on the banks of a 10 million mile river. All ages of humankind are represented from cavemen to the present. Some get on the Fabulous Riverboat to travel to the source of the river. Best read after the first in the series, To Your Scattered Bodies Go.
    • 2/5
      Well this book was a bit of a disappointment to me. I loved book 1 but book 2 , I do not know, It seems to me it was more a war book. There were still scenes I thought interesting, like the relation ship between Sam and his earth wife and I liked The Big guy but hated the way he talked. It was hard for me to understand what he was saying, but overall I was just glad to end it.
      I will give book 3 a try. I am reading it right now and glad to be back with Richard F. Burton to be honest. Maybe that was another reason, so many new people and I did not really like Sam as much.
    • 3/5
      The Fabulous Riverboat is a good follow up to To Your Scattered Bodies Go, the first book in the Riverworld series. I shouldn't have read some reviews about this one while I was reading it because it did colour my feelings about the book a little. Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) isn't his witty best in this story. There's no one funnier than Twain in full flight. One of my favourite books by him is The Innocents Abroad and it is hilarious, the satire is scathing. Farmer's Twain is more humourless. Possibly the circumstances of his re-birth and life on Riverworld has made him more earnest and mopy. That said I still liked the book for the ideas expressed and the plot moves along at a nice clip. There's more than enough intrigue to continue. Richard Burton, the explorer and main protagonist in the first book - not the actor , returns in book 3 of the Riverworld series so I'm looking forward to that.A quick edit to note that SF&F books prior to the 1980s are notable for being short compared to now. This probably a good thing. The Fabulous Riverboat is no exception. It only runs to about 230 pages. If it had been written now Farmer would be expected to punch out 4 or 500 pages. A couple of hundred pages is easily more digestible and less intimidating that 500 page door stopper.
    • 3/5
      I had purchased the first two books of the Riverworld series together at a used book store several years back, but then found myself quite disappointed with To Your Scattered Bodies Go. So this had been languishing in my "to be read" stack for a long, long time when I decided to pick it up for a quick read before digging into heavier duty anticipated Chrismas gift reading materials.I am happy to report that I liked it more than the first book of the series (doesn't it usually seem to work the other way?). Samuel Clemens is not particularly believable, but I found him more sympathetic as a protagonist than Richard Francis Burton. Indeed, while the characters here are often annoying, they are at least drawn in more realistic shades of gray than I remember from the first volume. And at least some of the billiions of women from the history of humanity seem to have some purpose higher than having carnal knowledge of the protagonist. The ending offers no sense of closure whatsoever.By the end of this volume I can almost begrudingly admit that I have at least a moderate level of interest in finding out who created this world and why and which them is out to thwart their grand plans and why. But the moderately interesting meta story seems to me the limit of what the series has to offer.
    • 1/5
      Not so great. I found Farmer's portrayal of Clemens unconvincing and unlikely as a leader anyone would follow. The novel leads me to be believe that the mystery of Riverworld is more exciting that what Farmer intended is actually going on.
    • 4/5
      Well worth reading, even if it is not as compelling as "To Your Scattered Bodies Go". That was the first in the Riverworld series, introducing the premise and posing the big question that drives the series -- why has everyone who ever lived awoken after death on the banks of a great river, with all their needs supplied? In "Fabulous Riverboat", we learn more about the Riverworld and meet new characters, most particularly Samuel Clemens. It may not have the thrill of the first encounter, but it is still engrossing and imaginative.
    • 4/5
      This was an extremely difficult book to rate and review. Farmer created a brilliant concept in the first novel of his Riverworld series entitled To Your Scattered Bodies Go. The premise of Riverworld is that every single human who has ever lived has been reincarnated on a strange planet. Not only are they suddenly back alive, they are young again, and each time they die in this new world they are reincarnated somewhere else 24 hours later. Needless to say, this and all the other odd rules I did not mention are an excuse for Farmer to play in a sandbox of disparate cultures and historical figures.But it is a concept I love. However arbitrary it seems, there's no denying this is one of the best ideas to come out of science fiction. There are innumerable directions to take such a premise. Does Farmer's execution hold up? I had a few reservations about To Your Scattered Bodies Go, but for the most part, my answer was a resounding yes. In the Fabulous Riverboat, it is a much weaker yes.The Fabulous Riverboat is almost a reboot. The main character from the first novel, Richard Burton, is nowhere to be seen. He is referenced a few times, but the focus of The Fabulous Riverboat is Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain. The problem with this is obvious. Richard Burton is a historical figure, but not widely known. Samuel Clemens however, is still famous and beloved by a great many people. As evidenced in other reviews, readers may be less than satisfied with Farmer's portrayal of Clemens.Personally, I had no issue with Farmer's Clemens. This is a reincarnation of Clemens at the very end of his life. This is a reincarnation of a man, not one of his characters. Clemens acted the part of a tortured humorist to my satisfaction. All of the misery Clemens suffered was still apparent in this resurrected Clemens, and hints of his famous wit bleed through at several points. Farmer is not Clemens and he is not the same kind of writer as Clemens, so I felt he did an admirable job of representing him.Where Farmer failed in my view, is with other characters like his pre-human Joe Miller, the Viking Bloodaxe and Cyrano de Bergerac. All felt like caricatures rather than characters. King John of Lackland is portrayed well as his Herman Goering, but Elwood and the other black nationalists were not. It was hit and miss, but the focus is on Samuel Clemens, and I felt Farmer presented a believable Mark Twain.By the end of the novel, the characters are no closer than they were in the first novel to reaching the headwaters of the planet circling river and finding the identity of those who have reincarnated them. I have a bad feeling that will remain the case until the very last novel.That said, this is still a quality series. Farmer has created such a brilliant concept, I can ignore the issues I listed here. Other readers less taken with the idea may not be able to.
    • 2/5
      As in the first book, Farmer bites off more than he can chew. By using real individuals and cultures from history as his fodder, Farmer invites close inspection by readers familiar with (and fond of) those characters and cultures.His protagonist is an unfunny Mark Twain, whose occasional spoutings of without the ichor for which Twain is renowned. Likewise, the many conflicting cultures are oversimplified and whitewashed. Peace and war both come too easily, and intrigue tends to be replaced by bare conflict. Farmer includes the grandest political players to ever take the stage, and then makes them nothing more than petty warlords.The whole plot is moved along by a mysterious and literal deus ex machina, and despite the buildup of the first book, brings us no closer to the mystery itself. Though I was curious how Farmer meant to resolve the grand questions raised by his grandiose world, he revealed too little to titillate.This, combined with the massive influx of minor characters to a busy and muddled plot did little to keep me reading. Perhaps I will get to the other books at some point, but with my current to-read pile, it doesn't seem likely.There is also an entertaining throwaway character in this book, a huge pre-human giant. Farmer strains credibility by presenting this creature as being capable of learning human speech (impossible for adult humans who were not exposed as children, let alone a pre-human larynx). Beyond this, he also comes to quickly grasp abstract thought, humor, planning, rationality, and sarcasm. Perhaps Farmer is a hard-line Chomskyan.Farmer's idea for this series was audacious, but his plotting and characterization are rather bland, and seem even moreso against the unbelievably grand backdrop of Riverworld. Like Feynman said of religion: "The stage is too big for the drama".
    • 4/5
      The second in the original Riverworld series, this continues the fantastic story of the adventurers. This is a very vivid novel, with great use of historical personalities, combined with the very creative Riverworld concept. Definitely an inspiration for The Matrix, and well worth reading multiple times.
    • 2/5
      This is the second book in Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series, the first of which, To Your Scattered Bodies Go, I read in December. I bought it from eBay after being intrigued by the synopsis on Wikipedia. Essentially, the entirety of the human race - from prehistoric cavemen to futuristic space-dwelling societies - is simultaneously resurrected along the banks of an enormously long river-valley, averaging only a few miles across and surrounded by impenetrable mountains on both sides. Everyone is in the body of their 25-year old self, minus any facial hair, foreskins and chemical addictions. Anyone who died before the age of 25 is resurrected at the age they died, and they then grow naturally until they reach 25, when they stop. No children under the age of 5 have been resurrected. It is found impossible to conceive children on the Riverworld.Every person is provided with a "grail," a canister of metal which provides food, drink, cloth and luxury items like alcohol and marijuana. To be used, the grail must be placed at a "grailstone:" large mushroom-shaped rocks spaced at mile-long intervals along the river, which are powered three times daily (breakfast, lunch and dinner). Agriculture is impossible, since the only plants are grass, bamboo, and various types of tree, and the only animals are earthworms and fish. Therefore a grail is nearly essential to survival - though if a person dies, they are simply resurrected again elsewhere along the river, with a new grail.Each area of the river initially contains three groups of people: a large group of people from one time and place (say, Meiji era Japanese), a smaller group of people from another time and place (say, 7th century Franks) and a tiny group of people from random times and places. Most people from the 20th century are part of the third group. There is nobody from a time later than 2008, apparently because the human race was wiped out in this year, which I of course find highly appropriate for my reading experience. Humanity - bewildered, frightened, and with all its religions disproved by the existence of this world - sets about recreating its earthly societies, with nation-states growing over time, war and trade both flourishing, and every form of government that ever existed set in place in various new nations lining the riverbank on both sides."We've passed a hundred new Prussias in the last ten thousand miles," Clemens said. "All so small you couldn't stand in the middle of one and heave a brick without it landing in the middle of the next."Most people are content to spend their unexpected afterlife indulging in all of the race's old vices of drugs, sex and violence. Very few seek answers to the mysteries behind Riverworld - who created it? For what purpose? Where are they? How long has it been since 2008? One of these curious few is Richard Francis Burton, who travels up the river as far as he can with a motley crew of other resurrectees. When they are killed passing through territory controlled by Hermann Goring, he utilises the "Suicide Express" to travel randomly across the planet, hoping to eventually arrive at the source or mouth of the river, uncertain whether it has either. He is eventually commended by a mysterious stranger, who identifies himself as one of the "Ethicals" - the presumably alien faction responsible for the creation of Riverworld and the resurrection of humanity. He is attempting to subvert its purpose, and urges Burton to continue trying to reach his goal.Rather than continuing Burton's story, The Fabulous Riverboat follows Samuel Clemens, who shares the same goal of finding the crafters of Riverworld and forcing them to explain their purpose. Like Burton, he also plans to reach the river's headwaters, though he intends to do so by building a great steam-powered riverboat, well-armed and invulnerable, to prevent the inevitable problem of being killed by somebody upriver and finding himself thousands of miles downstream again. Unfortunately, Riverworld was deliberately constructed bare of mineral resources - until a meteorite lands just upriver of Mark Twain and his band of Vikings, wiping out life in that area and allowing him to quickly set up a nation-state and mine the meteorite for iron. But others soon arrive, lured by the same lust for metal that Twain's followers have, and he faces a long struggle before he can ever build his riverboat and set off on the greatest voyage of all time.These books are certainly imaginative. The concept is grandiose and Farmer deserves praise for coming up with it in the first place. Unfortunately, he's not quite the greatest writer of either his generation or even his genre, lacking any particular flair or style (especially after just reading Michael Chabon). While the Riverworld series gets five stars for concept, it can only manage two or three for execution. But it's still worth reading, and I'll certainly be buying the next few books.As an aside, I found it a little unbelievable that so many recognisable historical figures would be rubbing shoulders. The Fabulous Riverboat alone features Mark Twain, John Lackland, Eric Bloodaxe, Lothar von Richtofen, Hermann Goring, Cyrano de Bergerac, Mozart, Oddyseus, Frederick Rolfe, Pedro Ansurez, Liver-Eating Johnson, Tokugawa Iyeyasu, Joseph von radowitz, and Cleomenes. And I don't think that's all of them. Obviously that's part of the appeal of a series like this, especially for someone with any basic knowledge of history, but c'mon. Seriously.EDIT, November 2008: Having subsequently finished reading the rest of this awful, awful series, I would have to reccomend that you steer well clear. The first two are acceptable, but the next two are so unbearably appalling that I gnashed my teeth and wrung my hands while reading them (see both my review on the next two books, "The Dark Design" and "The Magic Labyrinth.")
    • 5/5
      Love this series. Very original and a great story.
    • 3/5
      Read at least once &/or recommend selectively. A decent read or a “have to read staple”.Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld Saga is based on an interesting premise: all the people who ever lived on Earth, from all geographic locales and all times, are resurrected, young, naked and hairless, and find themselves on the shores of a river millions of miles long.Farmer throws an interesting assortment of famous people into the 5-book Riverworld saga; "The Fabulous Riverboat" includes appearances by King John Lackland, Odysseus, Cyrano de Bergerac, and, in the role of protagonist, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain). Unfortunately, Clemens' best friend and protector, a Neanderthal-looking 800 pound giant called Joe, speaks with such a pronounced lisp that the reader is drawn out of the story to decipher his words. Farmer is clubbing the reader on the head with a giant stick that reads, "Not everyone who looks and sounds dumb is actually dumb." Too bad he himself writes as if his readers would be too stupid to get the message if it had been presented subtly.Further marring the read, Clemens is an entirely unlikeable "hero". He is a cowardly, complaining, pessimistic, self-centered, sniveling, morally conflicted man who is willing to do (or allow to happen) whatever it takes to get what he wants, a Riverboat he can captain to the headwaters of the 16.9 million mile River. His ultimate goal is the same as the protagonist in the first book: to find the Ethicals, the beings who are reported to be behind the mass resurrection of all Earth's people.While the premise of a mass resurrection of all people from all times still makes for an interesting read, this book does nothing to move the Riverworld plot forward. We are no closer to knowing why it has occurred, who the Ethicals are, what they want, how they did it, or any other piece of the plot.I will keep reading, placing my hope in the promise of the plot's forward momentum. Two down, three to go...
    • 3/5
      I liked the first book (To Your Scattered Bodies Go), but this was less good. There were not many new ideas, the hero was unlikeable and the end, in my opinion, quite flat.Nevertheless, the idea of humanity resurrected and the hunt for the reason is still intriguing to me and I guess I'll have to continue with the series. I just hope something interesting happens in the next book.
    • 3/5
      This is the weak link in the series. Sam Clements is as unlikeable a hero as there ever was.