Book Review: To Your Scattered Bodies Go

Book Review: 'To Your Scattered Bodies Go' by Philip Jose Farmer

3 / 5 Stars

'To Your Scattered Bodies Go' first was published in hardcover in January 1971. This Ace Books paperback (222 pp) was published in June 1988. The cover art is uncredited, by likely done by Don Ivan Punchatz.

'Scattered Bodies' is a fixup of the stories 'Day of the Great Shout' (published in 'Worlds of Tomorrow', January 1965) and 'Suicide Express' (published in 'Worlds of Tomorrow', March 1966). It's the first volume in the 'Riverworld' series, which consists of 'The Fabulous Riverboat' (1971), 'The Dark Design' (1977), 'The Magic Labyrinth' (1980) and 'Gods of Riverworld' (1983).

Over the years I have noticed that you can go into any used bookshop and find quite a few copies of the Riverworld series lying on the shelves. I finally came around to picking up and reading 'Scattered Bodies' more out of a sense of duty than because I expected a novel than transcends the genre. And 'Scattered Bodies' is indeed nothing particularly remarkable; it's a solid 3-Star novel, that more or less reads like anything else done by the prolific Farmer.

The protagonist of 'Scattered Bodies' is the Victorian explorer and adventurer Sir Richard Burton, who, upon dying of a heart attack in Trieste, Italy on October 20, 1890, at the age of 69, awakens on a grassy area adjoining a mile-wide river. He is accompanied by other men, women, and children; all are naked and devoid of hair, and the adults are no older than they were in their mid-20s. 

The 'resurrectees' comprise important historical figures as well as commoners, and people from different geological eras, as well as different races, ethnicities, and mother tongues. There is a pink-skinned alien named Monat, and a Neanderthal named Kazz, among the group.

After initial bouts of bewilderment, Burton and the other ressurectees establish a riverside community, relying on nearby groves of bamboo for materials to build crude huts, and eventually, small ships to travel upon the river. Rock formations allow for the fashioning of knives and axes. Mysterious mushroom-shaped rocks scattered around the landscape supply food, liquor, and drugs at regular intervals. 

Burton speculates that the river - bounded by impenetrable mountain ranges - is probably thousands of miles in length, and the entire world within which he lives has evidently been constructed by some omnipotent beings for some purpose known only to themselves. But Burton is unwilling to adopt a life of passivity imposed upon him by the agents of his resurrection. One way or another, he intends to find the Tower that lies at the end of the river.......the Tower where, it is rumored, the rulers of Riverworld are assembled........

'Scattered Bodies' benefits from a quick-moving plot, helped along with intervals of violent action (more than a few of the resurrectees soon are Behaving Badly towards one another). There are the typical Famer-ian passages which expound on historical, religious, and sociological issues; these underlie the broader theme of Revelation coming only to those with the courage to seek it.

I can't say I finished 'To Your Scattered Bodies Go' with a burning desire to visit the remaining volumes in the Riverworld franchise, but fans of Farmer's writings may want to consider investing in the series, as it stands as one of his most high-profile works.