Farmer, Philip Jose. The fabulous riverboat. New York: Berkley Medallion, 1973. 256pp.

This is the second book in Farmer's Riverworld series, the first of which, To your scattered bodies go, I reviewed about 18 months ago. That one was quite a good book, really deserving the classic label. As a reminder, the Riverworld series takes place on a giant planet where everyone from all human history has been reincarnated along a hugely long river.

This one, however, was a bit of a disappointment. The story revolves around Samuel Clemens' (yes, Mark Twain) attempts to build a river boat to explore the river and discover the secrets of the mysterious aliens that have created this bizarre scenario. First of all, the book was mostly political wrangling until the very end, the boat project didn't really even get underway until the last 100 or so pages. The story never really grabbed me like the first one.

The third in the series is about exploring the Riverworld, so I will probably end up giving that one a try. On the other hand, the extended series rule of diminishing sequel returns may not favour that option. We'll see.