The fabulous river boat

The Fabulous Riverboat is a novel by Philip José Farmer, an American science fiction writer, which is the second volume of the Riverworld Saga.

The Fabulous Riverboat does not focus on Richard Francis Burton's character, like the first volume (To Your Scattered Bodies), to the point where he is not even featured as a character. In his place are the writer Mark Twain and his friend the titanthropist Joe Miller, who at the beginning of the journey travel with the Viking band of Erik Bloody Axe, who have been promised iron with which to build a ship to reach the origin of the gigantic river in which they live. The mysterious renegade Ethical then intervenes, dropping a meteorite over the river that carries iron (nonexistent in the valley). Twain and Bloodaxe manage to gain the position, but must defend it from a series of other miniature states formed around it. Finally, to save the precious meteorite, Twain betrays and kills Bloodaxe, making the invader Landless John of England his partner. In this way, Twain ends up forced to share power in Parolando (the republic created by Twain) with Juan Sin Tierra. After multiple incidents (among which is the appearance of the Celtic Gwenafra, who in the first volume wandered with Burton until accidentally separated from him), Mark Twain builds a gigantic river boat. However, at the climax of setting sail, Landless John seizes the ship and expels Twain's allies, for which Twain vows to catch up with Landless Juan and kill him along with sinking his ship.

Unlike the first volume of the work, where the interest is focused on the individual journeys of Burton and his gang, in the second volume of Mundo del Río the reader attends the formation of small states and kingdoms, and the consequent palace intrigues derived from international politics, taking a step forward in the work.