"Philip Jose Farmer - Riverworld 3 - The Dark Design" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

How would these people manage to form a viable state from anarchy? How would
they succeed, or fail, in their efforts to get along with each other and to
form
a body which could defend itself against hostile states? What problems would
they have?
In the book at hand, Jack London, Tom Mix, Nur ed-din el-Musaf ir, and Peter
Jairus Frigate sail on the Razzle Dazzle II up The River. There is
considerable
characterization of Frigate and Nur in volumes III and IV. However, there was
not enough space to fully develop the characters of the others. So, the
"sidestream" stories will give me scope to do this.
These will also relate how the crew of the Razzle Dazzle meet some major and
minor representatives of various fields of human endeavor. These should
include
da Vinci, Rousseau, Karl Marx, Rameses II, Nietzsche, Bakunin, Alcibiades,
Eddy,
Ben Jonson, Li Po, Nichiren Daishonin, Asoka, an Ice Age cavewife, Joan of
Arc,
Gilgamesh, Edwin Booth, Faust et al.
It's been apparent to some that Peter Jairus Frigate remarkably resembles the
author. It is true that I am the basis for that character, but Frigate has
approximately the similarity to me that David Copperfield has to Charles
Dickens. The author's physical and psychic features are only a springboard for
propelling reality into that parareality-fiction.
I apologize to the readers for the cliffhanger endings of the first three
volumes. The structure of the series was such that I could not emulate that of
Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. In these each volume seemed to have a
definite
conclusion, the mystery seeming-ly solved, only to reveal in the sequel that
the
previous ending was false or misleading.
I hope to finish the series, volumes I through V (or possibly VI), before it's
my time to lie down and rest while waiting to board the fabulous riverboat.
-Philip Jose Farmer

1

Dreams haunted the Riverworld.
Sleep, night's Pandora, was even more generous than on Earth. There, it had
been
this for you and that for your neighbor. Tomor-row, that for you and this for
next door.
Here in this endless valley, along these unceasing Riverbanks, she dumped her
treasure chest, showering everybody with all gifts: terror and pleasure,
memory
and anticipation, mystery and revela-tion.
Billions stirred, muttered, groaned, whimpered, laughed, cried out, swam to
wakefullness, sank back again.
Mighty engines battered the walls, and things wriggled out through the holes.
Often, they did not retreat but stayed, phantoms who refused to fade at