Riverworld

Re-reading Philip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld series, which I had read when I was 15 or so. I wanted to see if I enjoyed the philosophical bent more now than I did then.

Eh … it’s OK. Neat premise (all 36 billion humans who ever lived resurrected on the banks of a 10-million mile long river, with their material needs cared for and the possibility of permanent death initially gone). Allows him to really look at social/cultural interactions and evolution in a little laboratory, with the material side more or less controlled (though of course people still pursue more and more material stuff, especially at first). But the prose is rather stilted and the whole thing is a little sophomoric. Oh well, I guess that’s why it’s science fiction, not usually my preferred genre.