To Your Scattered Bodies Go (Riverworld Series Book 1) by Philip Jose’ Farmer

Scenario: You’re dead. But you wake up naked next to a bunch of other people, next to a river, a plain, and impassable mountain ranges on either side. There’s a mushroom that provides food, smokes, and clothing. As far as you can tell, everyone who ever lived has also appeared next to this extremely long river. Also, everyone is 25 years old or younger.

What’s up with that?

told me of this series many years ago, but I just got around to borrowing it from him (it’s never available in a bookstore when I think to browse for it). It’s a good read.

I see from the bio that Philip Jose’ Farmer was born in 1918 in Terre Haute, IN, which is 5 years after and 20 miles from the time and place when my grandfather, Floyd Lucas, was born. I wonder if they met at a barn dance.

I’ve got Book 2 queued up. says the series’ conventions kind of go off the rails after that.