New Book of the Week: To Your Scattered Bodies Go
Announcing the news you’ve all been waiting for: we have at last published To Your Scattered Bodies Go, the first book in Philip José Farmer‘s acclaimed Riverworld series. Hurrah!
For reasons we laid out right at the beginning in the site’s FAQs, we knew we would have to publish some series out of order, and that would mean, inevitably, that we’d occasionally have series missing the opening books. We took the decision to publish as and when a file became available because the alternative was not to have the books available at all until we could present them from the start. We reasoned that, given most of Gateway’s books were out of print, there could well be people out there who had tracked down some of a series but had gaps that needed filling, and we’d be doing those people a service. For those who hadn’t read a series yet and wanted to start it, we reasoned that, had we held the books back until the entire series was ready, they couldn’t have read the books, anyway. It seemed to us that publishing ‘as and when’ would be of service to readers who had incomplete series in print editions and were trying to plug gaps, whereas the other approach would be of service to no one.
Anyway, that’s our story and we’re stickin’ to it.
We hope that all those who have heard amazing things about Philip José Farmer‘s Riverworld sequence will be pleased that they can now start it at the beginning. We do still have books 3 and 6 to publish and we’ll be working to get those files ready for publication as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, enjoy the adventures of Sir Richard Burton, Alice Liddell, Samuel Clemens and a host of other famous names from history, as they explore their mysterious resurrection along the banks of a mighty river that seemingly has no end.
At the round earth’s imagin’d corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go
