Farmer, Philip Jose – Riverworld 06 – ( Shorts) Tales of Riverworld

CONTENTS

Foreword by Philip Jose Farmer ix

CROSSING THE DARK RIVER

by Philip Jose” Farmer 7

A HOLE IN HELL by Dane Helstrom 65

GRACELAND by Alien Steele 73

EVERY MAN A GOD

by Mike Resnick and Barry N. Malzberg 101

BLANDINGS ON RIVERWORLD

by Phillip C. Jennings 141

TWO THIEVES by Harry Turtledove 173

FOOL’S PARADISE by Ed Gorman 207

THE MERRY MEN OF RIVERWORLD

by John Gregory Betancourt 237

UNFINISHED BUSINESS by Robert Weinberg

283

FOREWORD

by Philip Jose Farmer

What we have here is a gathering of stories by different writers about one planet. This is the Riverworld, the first novel about which was written by me and was published in 1971. This novel was called To Your Scattered Bodies Go. The second, The Fabulous Riverboat, appeared the same year. Then came The Dark Design, The Magic Labyrinth, and Gods of Riverworld. My novelet, River-world, is part of the series but is not concerned with the main plot or main characters.

The book at hand is a shared-world anthology. That is, each of its stories takes place on the Riverworld but is by a different writer. These writers were given carte blanche with their situations and characters but had to follow the structure and strictures of the Riverworld as laid down by me. However, when the action takes place on a planet where there is a river almost eighteen million miles long, and which is populated by over thirty-six billion and six hundred million human beings who lived and died on Earth from circa 100,000 B.C. to A.D. 1983, the writers are not very confined.

My “Crossing the Dark River” is the lead story. “A Hole in Hell,” a very short but powerful story, is by Dane Helstrom, a name appearing in print for the first time. Jennings’s “Blandings on Riverworld” is the first humorous Riverworld story to be written. Betancourt’s “The Merry Men of Riverworld” is about a character who is well known in the Western world. Well, it is in a way. “Fool’s Paradise” is by Ed German, a well-known mystery writer, and is his first science-fiction story. His protagonist, as might be expected, is a detective-turned-writer well known in the twentieth century. Weinberg’s “Unfinished Business,” Resnick’s and Malzberg’s “Every Man a God,” and Turtledove’s “Two Thieves” exhibit the inventive virtues and high imagination we have come to expect from these writers.

In fact, as one of the editors choosing these stories for inclusion in the anthology, I was very pleased with their handling of another writer’s basic concept and of the historical characters they chose to write about.

I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I did.

Crossing the Dark River

Philip Jose Farmer

“What? You prescribed lemon juice to cure cholera?”

“What? You had a sure cure for infants who held their breaths until their faces turned blue? And for young females in a hysterical seizure? You stuck your little finger up their anuses? Presto! Changeo! They’re rid forever of infantile behavior and the tantrums of the body?”

“What? You’re searching for the woman who’s supposed to have given birth to a baby somewhere along the River? A baby? In this world where all are sterile and no woman has ever gotten pregnant? You believe that’s true? How about buying the Brooklyn Bridge?

‘ ‘No? Then how about a splinter from the True Cross? Ho! Ho! Ho! And you believe that this baby reproduced by parthenogenesis is Jesus Christ born again to save us Valleydwellers? And you’ve been traveling up-River to find the infant? Who do you think you are? One of the Three Wise Men? Ho! Ho! Ho!”

And so Doctor Andrew Paxton Davis had not stayed long any place until he had been detained by Ivar the Boneless. He had wandered up the Valley, seldom paus-

2 Philip Jos<5 Farmering, just as, on Earth, he had been the peripatetic's peripatetic. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, he had traveled to many cities in the United States. There he had lectured on and practiced his new art of healing and sometimes established colleges of osteopathy. Denver, Colorado; Quincy, Missouri; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Cincinnati, Ohio; LaFayette and Indianapolis, Indiana; Dallas and Corsicana, Texas; Baker, City, Oregon; Los Angeles, California, and many other places.