TO YOUR SCATTERED BODIES GO, Putnam 1971, first published in hardcover

Book one of the Riverworld series and Hugo Award number three. Anyone who reads science fiction is familiar with the premise, everyone who has ever lived (up to 1984) is resurrected on the banks of a million mile long river. Their bodily needs are taken care of each day, and anyone who dies on the Riverworld wakes up the next morning somewhere else on the river. The true genius of this idea is that Farmer can take any of his heroes, from any period in time, and let them interact. This book looks at Sir Richard Francis Burton, famed translator of the 1001 Arabian Nights and discoverer of the source of the Nile. Burton meets many interesting and famous people and also hangs out with Peter Jarius Frigate (note the initials). This book was also released as an audio book. This is the original cover of the first paperback edition published in 1972.

THE FABULOUS RIVERBOAT, Putnam 1971, first published in hardcover

Book two of the Riverworld series. This time Samuel Clemens is the main character and since sailing is much easier than walking he decides to build a boat and use it to find the source of the river and whatever may be waiting there. The reader also learns more of the secrets of the Riverworld.

THE DARK DESIGN, Berkley Putnam 1977, first published in hardcover

The long awaited book three of the Riverworld series. Sir Richard Francis Burton is back and still searching for the source of the great river and the answer to the eternal question, why are we here? In this book we trade in Sam Clemens' favorite form of travel for Philip José Farmer's, the dirigible.

THE MAGIC LABYRINTH, Berkley Putnam 1980, first published in Hardcover

The fourth and supposedly concluding book of the Riverworld series. Richard Burton and his companions finally make it to the end of the river and gain access to the home of the mysterious "ethicals".

GODS OF RIVERWORLD, Phantasia Press 1983, first published in hardcover

Book five of the Riverworld series. A limited number of books were published by Phantasia Press, the mass market hardcover was printed by Berkley Putnam. The journey is over and now our travelers have control of the resurrection process and the power of life and death over billions of people. But they are not alone. Once again Farmer stimulates the mind.

About the Author

PHILIP JOSE FARMER (1918- ) was one of SF's groundbreaking mavericks, an author who loved to write speculatively about sex and religion at a time when most SF editors and publishers considered these topics taboo. TO YOUR SCATTERED BODIES GO (1971) is the first of several novels and stories by Farmer about "Riverworld," a place where all of mankind has been reincarnated along the banks of an enormous river. In the first volume, Sir Richard Francis Burton - explorer, linguist, and translator of The Arabian Nights - joins forces with Alice Hargreaves - the real-life model for Carroll's Alice in Wonderland - and a Neanderthal named Kazz, against Nazi aviator, Hermann Goering. Subsequent chapters in Farmer's endlessly entertaining epic involve historical characters as diverse as Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and Jesus Christ.

Richard M. Powers' typically abstract cover design illustrates the novel's opening sequence. Burton has just died, and awakes to find himself in some kind of uncanny between-lives area:

"The rods came up from an abyss without bottom and soared into an abyss without ceiling. That grayness into which the rods and the bodies, up and down, right and left, disappeared was neither the sky nor the the earth. There was nothing in the distance except the lackluster of infinity. . . . By then he understood that he was in some colossal chamber and that the metal rods were radiating some force that somehow supported and revolved millions -- maybe billions -- of human beings."

Farmer's Hugo award winning novel was later reprinted in a deluxe leatherbound edition by the Easton Press, with interior illustrations by Powers. Other Farmer novels and short story collections with covers by Powers include The Green Odyssey (Ballantine 1957), The Lovers (Ballantine 1961), The Alley God (Ballantine 1962), and Night Of Light (Berkley 1966).

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