River world
The river world is a fictional planet on which a series of novels by the American author Philip José Farmer takes place.
The books
Main series
- 1971: To Your Scattered Bodies Go
- German The River World of Time , Heyne 1979 - ISBN 3453305523
- 1971: The Fabulous Riverboat
- dt. Auf dem Zeitstrom , Heyne 1979 - ISBN 3453305671
- 1977: The Dark Design
- German The Dark Pattern , Heyne 1980 - ISBN 3453306139
- 1980: The Magic Labyrinth
- German Das magische Labyrinth , Heyne 1981 - ISBN 3453307399
- 1983: The Gods of Riverworld
- German The gods of the river world , Heyne 1986 - ISBN 3453312376
A German new edition of the above five books has been published by Piper since 2008.
original version
- 1983 - River of Eternity , Del Rey 1998 - ISBN 0345419677 (lost original version of the first volume To Your Scattered Bodies Go from around 1955, rediscovered in 1983)
Riverworld and Other Tales
In 1979 Farmer published a collection of short stories entitled Riverworld and Other Tales , some of which contained short stories or novellas that set on the river world, which were only partially published in German, but primarily in two volumes (1976 and 1977) The German version of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction published by Heyne Verlag and the Philip Jose Farmer anthology Schockvisionen published by Droemer Knaur in 1984 .
| Original title | German title |
|---|---|
| Riverworld |
|
| Stories That Will Not Appear in This Volume | did not show up |
| JC on the Dude Ranch | did not show up |
| The volcano | Der Vulkan (under the pseudonym Paul Chapin), in: Tod eines Samurai (= The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction No. 46), Heyne 1977 |
| The Henry Miller Dawn Patrol | Henry Miller on patrol flight , in the anthology Shock Visions |
| The Problem of the Sore Bridge - Among Others |
|
| Brass and Gold (or Horse and Zeppelin in Beverly Hills) | Tin and gold , in the anthology Schockvisionen |
| The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod |
|
| The Voice of the Sonar in My Vermiform Appendix | did not show up |
| monologue | did not show up |
| The Leaser of Two Evils | did not show up |
| The Phantom of the Sewers | did not show up |
Collaborations with other authors
Two brand new collections of short stories followed in the 90s, some of which are set in the river world, but of which only a few were written by Farmer himself, while most of them come from other authors. So far (2017) the individual short stories have been partially translated into French and Italian, but not into German.
- 1992 - Tales of Riverworld , Warner Books 1993 - ISBN 0446778176 (8 short stories, only two by Farmer)
- 1993 - Quest to Riverworld , Warner Books 1993 - ISBN 0446362700 (14 short stories, only two by Farmer)
content
On this planet a huge river, tens of thousands of kilometers long, was created by initially unknown people, which meanders from pole to pole. On the banks of this river all people who have lived on earth since the Stone Age will one day be resurrected. Whoever dies here will soon be resurrected in another place in the river world. With the exception of worms and some fish, there are no animals on the river world. The residents no longer have to strive for their daily bread, it is served to them in a personal converter of matter, called the “grail”, which is supplied with energy by a mushroom-shaped machine.
A small group led by the researcher Richard Francis Burton (who was “awakened” prematurely and thus knows the secret of the artificiality of this world) sets off for the north pole of the planet to track down the builders of the planet in a headquarters located there. On their journey they meet many historical personalities, such as Cyrano de Bergerac , Samuel Clemens ( Mark Twain ), Jack London , Tom Mix , Hermann Göring , King Johann Ohneland (brother of Richard the Lionheart) and also Alice Liddell (Alice from Wonderland). The figure of Peter Jairus Frigate shows the author's autobiographical traits (including the same year of birth) and shares the initials with him.
The background
According to the book, the builders of the planet want to use this experiment to find out how people develop under such conditions and enable them to "move forward", that is, to reach a higher level of consciousness where they will no longer be reborn. Since different peoples from different cultures and time periods live on the planet at the same time, this development can take thousands of years. So that the population does not increase further during this time, all residents are sterile.
The people along the river were roughly grouped according to place and time of death, with the people of the twentieth century being distributed over the entire course of the river as an exception. This quickly brings all people to an average level of knowledge of the twentieth century. At the same time, Esperanto is developing into the main language along the river. In the course of history, after a period of anarchy , there are tyranny, dictatorships , so-called “Grail slaves” who are forced to give up the contents of their daily filled food utensils, and in the end also democracies on the planet.
Complications arise when a renegade builder reveals to Burton and others that the experiment is about to end prematurely.
Film adaptations
In 2003, a television adaptation for the Sci-Fi Channel (now Syfy ) with elements of the first two books under the title Riverworld ( Riverworld - World Without End ) was produced in Canada , which, however, greatly distorted the plot. Among other things, there are horses - but according to the book there are no animals except fish. A moon is shown, but the river world does not have one. Also with Sir Richard Francis Burton a central character was exchanged for an American astronaut. The film was supposed to result in a series, but it was never realized. The German-language version of the film was first broadcast on ProSieben .
In 2009 a miniseries was commissioned which, if successful, could have been extended to a full series. In this version, the main character is a war reporter named Matt Ellman ( Tahmoh Penikett ), who dies together with his fiancée Jessie ( Laura Vandervoort ) in a suicide bombing and wakes up on the bank of the mysterious river, separated from his Jessie. He meets Mark Twain ( Mark Deklin ) and the samurai fighter Tomoe Gozen ( Jeananne Goossen ) and together the three go in search of Jessie. On the way they come across the “Caretaker” ( Alan Cumming ) and discover the secret of the river world. The new four-hour miniseries was filmed in Canada in early April 2009 and premiered on the SciFi Channel in April 2010 . At the end of April 2014 it was shown on Tele 5, divided into two lengths.
swell
- ↑ Report on the filming atquotemeter.de accessed on March 24, 2009
- ↑ more details on the filming at fictionBOX.de, accessed on December 2, 2010
Web links
- Riverworld - Endless World in the Internet Movie Database (2003)
- Riverworld in the Internet Movie Database (2010)