Not great. Mildly amusing. Overall concept of this afterlife word is interesting, but I'd known that from the 1st book in the series. ( )

http://pro-libertate.net/20090822/90-read-fabulous-riverboat ( )

Continuação de "To Your Scattered Bodies Go", no mundo do rio. Tem a desvantagem quanto ao primeiro livro de que o mundo já está colocado, e a tarefa anunciada, construir o barco e atravessar o rio. Portanto, não haverá novidades. Daí começam os problemas, porque as novidades e mistério no primeiro livro levantavam indagações filosóficas e sociológicas. Que aqui são abandonadas. O ser humano realmente busca o poder, e os líderes malévolos de antigamente serão líderes de facções malévolas no mundo do rio, o que leva a narrativa para a resolução de intrigas políticas e guerras, de um modo simplista, dado o mundo simples em que ocorrem. E o fato dos personagens serem tirados da história da humanidade não contribui aqui para que sejam mais interessantes - sua inserção por vezes soa conveniente ou então não especialmente relevante ou interessante. Assim, o livro acaba conduzindo a série para uma ideia de série de aventura fantástica, com heróis contra vilões. Mas não foi esse aspecto que me motivou a gostar do primeiro livro, e a princípio, penso que está bom parar aqui, sem enfrentar os outros três. ( )

It's a pretty okay novel, but it suffers from being a product of its times. That being said, it's pretty fun to ride with Samuel L. Clemens on his constantly-being-built steamboat, made of "Space Age" plastics! Wooooo that stuff is a pretty neat idea! Ahem. Sorry. I got carried away there.

A lot of the action is mostly finding new ways to build tech on the extremely huge world of reincarnated humans from all time periods showing up at the same time here, but we've moved along far enough that nations are being built and fortresses and boundaries are in full effect. Resource gathering is also a must, especially for a certain Mark Twain if he'll ever live out his dream of captaining his own steamboat. Of course, this is riverworld.

In 1971, the time when the novel came out, we're forced to face our worst nightmares (*laugh*) of an entirely black nation wanting to go completely isolationist from the honky. The arabs are too white, too, so even though they make up 1/6th of this separate riverworld nation, they're still getting evicted. "We're not perfect, whitey, but at least it'll be Our Problem. We blame you for everything." Storyline. Ahem. Let me be clear here. Practically EVERY treatment of the issue that I've ever read is better than this one. It's nearly a stereotype of a stereotype of black power, taken so far that it has come out the other side into near satire.

So, yeah, action happens, and tragedies, too, and all the while the mysterious counter-plan alien is trying to help ease our sufferings on this admittedly great-idea world. :)

Not the best novel I've ever read, by a long shot, but not incapable of telling a story, either. :) The first one was a lot more enjoyable. Sam was a bit too whiny for my tastes. *shrug*

I'm going to continue the series. This was hardly a deal-breaker. It's just a cultural-awareness crapfest issue. :) ( )

[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! ( )