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109-572: Riverworld began when Farmer wrote a 150,000-word novel, calling it Owe for the Flesh , over six weeks in the fall of 1952 and submitted it at the last minute to the Shasta Science-Fiction Novel Prize Contest. He won the contest, with assurances of publication, but circumstances conspired to ensure that that would not happen for many years. The complete manuscript, now believed lost, consisted of four "books": In about 1981, and in

218-415: A multi-layered network of cooperating, distinct, or even competing social groups – from families and peer groups to corporations and political states . As such, social interactions between humans have established a wide variety of values, social norms , languages , and traditions (collectively termed institutions ), each of which bolsters human society . Humans are also highly curious , with

327-668: A theory of mind . The human mind is capable of introspection , private thought , imagination , volition , and forming views on existence . This has allowed great technological advancements and complex tool development through complex reasoning and the transmission of knowledge to subsequent generations through language . Humans have had a dramatic effect on the environment . They are apex predators , being rarely preyed upon by other species. Human population growth , industrialization, land development, overconsumption and combustion of fossil fuels have led to environmental destruction and pollution that significantly contributes to

436-516: A book selling business in 1946, while still eager to publish the earlier attempted list. Korshak soon after met Everett F. Bleiler through a newspaper ad offering books for sale. Bleiler expressed interest in their project, and he eventually took it over; the result was The Checklist of Fantastic Literature , which was finally published under the Shasta imprint in 1948. Originally planning to primarily publish reference books on science fiction and fantasy,

545-443: A consequence of better nutrition, healthcare, and living conditions. The average mass of an adult human is 59 kg (130 lb) for females and 77 kg (170 lb) for males. Like many other conditions, body weight and body type are influenced by both genetic susceptibility and environment and varies greatly among individuals. Humans have a far faster and more accurate throw than other animals. Humans are also among

654-419: A few other places), saw the emergence of agriculture and permanent human settlement ; in turn, this led to the development of civilization and kickstarted a period of continuous (and ongoing) population growth and rapid technological change . Since then, a number of civilizations have risen and fallen, while a number of sociocultural and technological developments have resulted in significant changes to

763-463: A great capacity for altering their habitats by means of technology, irrigation , urban planning , construction, deforestation and desertification . Human settlements continue to be vulnerable to natural disasters , especially those placed in hazardous locations and with low quality of construction. Grouping and deliberate habitat alteration is often done with the goals of providing protection, accumulating comforts or material wealth, expanding

872-612: A higher body fat percentage. At puberty , humans develop secondary sex characteristics . Females are capable of pregnancy , usually between puberty, at around 12 years old, and menopause , around the age of 50. As omnivorous creatures, they are capable of consuming a wide variety of plant and animal material, and have used fire and other forms of heat to prepare and cook food since the time of Homo erectus . Humans can survive for up to eight weeks without food and several days without water . Humans are generally diurnal , sleeping on average seven to nine hours per day. Childbirth

981-475: A higher technology, and the food provided by the grails, the presence of abundant water and potential shelter, and the resurrections were to obviate economy. Alcohol, marijuana, and the LSD-like dreamgum were provided for recreational purposes and to assist contemplation. Peter Jairus Frigate is a fictionalized version of Philip José Farmer. Confusingly, it is only starting in the third volume The Dark Design that

1090-475: A human can lose personhood (such as by going into a persistent vegetative state ). Humans are apes ( superfamily Hominoidea ). The lineage of apes that eventually gave rise to humans first split from gibbons (family Hylobatidae) and orangutans (genus Pongo ), then gorillas (genus Gorilla ), and finally, chimpanzees and bonobos (genus Pan ). The last split, between the human and chimpanzee–bonobo lineages, took place around 8–4 million years ago, in

1199-503: A list and began writing letters to the readers' letter columns in the science fiction and fantasy pulp magazines , asking for help with the project; a card file was started, as was a manuscript. Unfortunately, these materials were put into storage when Dikty was drafted for service in World War II . After the war, the file and manuscript were unable to be located, and the work would have to begin again from scratch. Korshak and Dikty began

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1308-639: A missionary of the Church of the Second Chance, a peaceful religion. Apparently left to their own devices, the people re-create their Earthly societies. Because all human languages are initially in use on the Riverworld, the Ethicals are not able to explain clearly to the resurrected Humans what's happening. In order to explain without misunderstanding, they must first spread a common language. They choose Esperanto to be

1417-581: A more barrel-shaped chests in contrast to the funnel shape of other apes, an adaptation for bipedal respiration. Apart from bipedalism and brain size, humans differ from chimpanzees mostly in smelling , hearing and digesting proteins . While humans have a density of hair follicles comparable to other apes, it is predominantly vellus hair , most of which is so short and wispy as to be practically invisible. Humans have about 2 million sweat glands spread over their entire bodies, many more than chimpanzees, whose sweat glands are scarce and are mainly located on

1526-499: A much clearer picture of life at the time. Between the 8th and 6th century BCE, Europe entered the classical antiquity age, a period when ancient Greece and ancient Rome flourished. Around this time other civilizations also came to prominence. The Maya civilization started to build cities and create complex calendars . In Africa, the Kingdom of Aksum overtook the declining Kingdom of Kush and facilitated trade between India and

1635-408: A resilient mat of grass which covers the plains. The Riverworld has no visible moon, but a great number of stellar objects in the sky, including gas sheets and stars close enough to show a visible disk. The story of Riverworld begins when 36,006,009,637 humans, varying from the first Homo sapiens until the early 21st century, are simultaneously resurrected along the river. Of these, 20% are from

1744-447: A result, humans are a cosmopolitan species found in almost all regions of the world, including tropical rainforest , arid desert , extremely cold arctic regions , and heavily polluted cities; in comparison, most other species are confined to a few geographical areas by their limited adaptability. The human population is not, however, uniformly distributed on the Earth 's surface, because

1853-632: A similar species. Migrating out of Africa , they gradually replaced and interbred with local populations of archaic humans. Multiple hypotheses for the extinction of archaic human species such as Neanderthals include competition, violence , interbreeding with Homo sapiens , or inability to adapt to climate change . Humans began exhibiting behavioral modernity about 160,000–60,000 years ago. For most of their history, humans were nomadic hunter-gatherers. The Neolithic Revolution , which began in Southwest Asia around 13,000 years ago (and separately in

1962-515: A simple linear or branched progression but involved interbreeding between related species . Genomic research has shown that hybridization between substantially diverged lineages was common in human evolution. DNA evidence suggests that several genes of Neanderthal origin are present among all non sub-Saharan-African populations, and Neanderthals and other hominins, such as Denisovans , may have contributed up to 6% of their genome to present-day non sub-Saharan-African humans. Human evolution

2071-451: A successful labor increased significantly during the 20th century in wealthier countries with the advent of new medical technologies. In contrast, pregnancy and natural childbirth remain hazardous ordeals in developing regions of the world, with maternal death rates approximately 100 times greater than in developed countries. Both the mother and the father provide care for human offspring, in contrast to other primates, where parental care

2180-509: A very short span; one may enter dangerously unknown and potentially hostile territory in less than a day's journey . The reason for the existence of Riverworld is initially a complete mystery. In Farmer's books a number of historical figures—including Sir Richard Burton , Alice Hargreaves , Samuel Clemens , Baron de Marbot , King John of England , Cyrano de Bergerac , Tom Mix , Mozart , Jack London , Lothar von Richthofen , and Hermann Göring —interact with fictional characters to discover

2289-406: A wide variety of plant and animal material. Human groups have adopted a range of diets from purely vegan to primarily carnivorous . In some cases, dietary restrictions in humans can lead to deficiency diseases ; however, stable human groups have adapted to many dietary patterns through both genetic specialization and cultural conventions to use nutritionally balanced food sources. The human diet

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2398-511: Is 38 weeks, but a normal pregnancy can vary by up to 37 days. Embryonic development in the human covers the first eight weeks of development; at the beginning of the ninth week the embryo is termed a fetus . Humans are able to induce early labor or perform a caesarean section if the child needs to be born earlier for medical reasons. In developed countries, infants are typically 3–4 kg (7–9 lb) in weight and 47–53 cm (19–21 in) in height at birth. However, low birth weight

2507-665: Is Matt Ellman, an American war reporter, played by Tahmoh Penikett . The main villain is Richard Francis Burton, who ironically was one of the prime heroes in the novels. Some stories written by fans and taking place in the Riverworld universe have been published through the official Philip José Farmer website. Shasta Publishers Shasta Publishers was a science fiction and fantasy small press specialty publishing house founded in 1947 by Erle Melvin Korshak, T. E. Dikty , and Mark Reinsberg, who were all science fiction fans from

2616-485: Is a mixture of the two parental sets. Among the 23 pairs of chromosomes, there are 22 pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes . Like other mammals, humans have an XY sex-determination system , so that females have the sex chromosomes XX and males have XY. Genes and environment influence human biological variation in visible characteristics, physiology, disease susceptibility and mental abilities. The exact influence of genes and environment on certain traits

2725-424: Is a population decline in the winter months of this realm. Humans established nation-states in the other seven realms, such as South Africa , India , Russia , Australia , Fiji , United States and Brazil (each located in a different biogeographical realm). By using advanced tools and clothing , humans have been able to extend their tolerance to a wide variety of temperatures, humidities , and altitudes. As

2834-402: Is characterized by a number of morphological , developmental , physiological , and behavioral changes that have taken place since the split between the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees . The most significant of these adaptations are hairlessness , obligate bipedalism, increased brain size and decreased sexual dimorphism ( neoteny ). The relationship between all these changes

2943-456: Is common in developing countries, and contributes to the high levels of infant mortality in these regions. Compared with other species, human childbirth is dangerous, with a much higher risk of complications and death. The size of the fetus's head is more closely matched to the pelvis than in other primates. The reason for this is not completely understood, but it contributes to a painful labor that can last 24 hours or more. The chances of

3052-421: Is dangerous, with a high risk of complications and death . Often, both the mother and the father provide care for their children, who are helpless at birth . Humans have a large, highly developed, and complex prefrontal cortex , the region of the brain associated with higher cognition. Humans are highly intelligent and capable of episodic memory ; they have flexible facial expressions, self-awareness , and

3161-472: Is generally aging, with the median age around 40 years. In the developing world , the median age is between 15 and 20 years. While one in five Europeans is 60 years of age or older, only one in twenty Africans is 60 years of age or older. In 2012, the United Nations estimated that there were 316,600 living centenarians (humans of age 100 or older) worldwide. Humans are omnivorous , capable of consuming

3270-443: Is inherited only from the mother, geneticists have concluded that the last female common ancestor whose genetic marker is found in all modern humans, the so-called mitochondrial Eve , must have lived around 90,000 to 200,000 years ago. Most human reproduction takes place by internal fertilization via sexual intercourse , but can also occur through assisted reproductive technology procedures. The average gestation period

3379-408: Is mostly done by the mother. Helpless at birth , humans continue to grow for some years, typically reaching sexual maturity at 15 to 17 years of age. The human life span has been split into various stages ranging from three to twelve. Common stages include infancy , childhood , adolescence , adulthood and old age . The lengths of these stages have varied across cultures and time periods but

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3488-513: Is not well understood. While no humans – not even monozygotic twins  – are genetically identical, two humans on average will have a genetic similarity of 99.5%-99.9%. This makes them more homogeneous than other great apes, including chimpanzees. This small variation in human DNA compared to many other species suggests a population bottleneck during the Late Pleistocene (around 100,000 years ago), in which

3597-445: Is the subject of ongoing debate. Hylobatidae ( gibbons ) Pongo abelii Pongo tapanuliensis Pongo pygmaeus Gorilla gorilla Gorilla beringei Pan troglodytes Pan paniscus Homo sapiens (humans) Until about 12,000 years ago, all humans lived as hunter-gatherers . The Neolithic Revolution (the invention of agriculture ) first took place in Southwest Asia and spread through large parts of

3706-654: Is typified by an unusually rapid growth spurt during adolescence. Human females undergo menopause and become infertile at around the age of 50. It has been proposed that menopause increases a woman's overall reproductive success by allowing her to invest more time and resources in her existing offspring, and in turn their children (the grandmother hypothesis ), rather than by continuing to bear children into old age. The life span of an individual depends on two major factors, genetics and lifestyle choices. For various reasons, including biological/genetic causes, women live on average about four years longer than men. As of 2018 ,

3815-534: The British Empire expanded to become the world's largest empire . A tenuous balance of power among European nations collapsed in 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War , one of the deadliest conflicts in history. In the 1930s, a worldwide economic crisis led to the rise of authoritarian regimes and a Second World War , involving almost all of the world's countries . The war's destruction led to

3924-568: The Caral–Supe civilization is the oldest complex civilization in the Americas. Astronomy and mathematics were also developed and the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. There is evidence of a severe drought lasting about a hundred years that may have caused the decline of these civilizations, with new ones appearing in the aftermath. Babylonians came to dominate Mesopotamia while others, such as

4033-448: The Chicago area. The name of the press was suggested by Reinsberg in remembrance of a summer job that he and Korshak had held at Mount Shasta . As science fiction fans and book collectors, Mel Korshak, Mark Reinsberg, Ted Dikty , and Fred Shroyer recognized the need for a comprehensive list of science fiction and fantasy published up to that time. In 1940 they made plans to compile such

4142-501: The Church would provide centralized authority and education. In the Middle East, Islam became the prominent religion and expanded into North Africa. It led to an Islamic Golden Age , inspiring achievements in architecture , the revival of old advances in science and technology, and the formation of a distinct way of life. The Christian and Islamic worlds would eventually clash, with

4251-470: The Homo genus. The name " Homo sapiens " means 'wise man' or 'knowledgeable man'. There is disagreement if certain extinct members of the genus, namely Neanderthals , should be included as a separate species of humans or as a subspecies of H. sapiens . Human is a loanword of Middle English from Old French humain , ultimately from Latin hūmānus , the adjectival form of homō ('man' – in

4360-566: The Kingdom of England , the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire declaring a series of holy wars to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims . In the Americas, between 200 and 900 CE Mesoamerica was in its Classic Period , while further north, complex Mississippian societies would arise starting around 800 CE. The Mongol Empire would conquer much of Eurasia in the 13th and 14th centuries. Over this same time period,

4469-819: The Mali Empire in Africa grew to be the largest empire on the continent, stretching from Senegambia to Ivory Coast . Oceania would see the rise of the Tuʻi Tonga Empire which expanded across many islands in the South Pacific. By the late 15th century, the Aztecs and Inca had become the dominant power in Mesoamerica and the Andes , respectively. The early modern period in Europe and

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4578-572: The Old World over the following millennia. It also occurred independently in Mesoamerica (about 6,000 years ago), China, Papua New Guinea , and the Sahel and West Savanna regions of Africa. Access to food surplus led to the formation of permanent human settlements , the domestication of animals and the use of metal tools for the first time in history. Agriculture and sedentary lifestyle led to

4687-477: The Paleolithic level, the surrounding mountains prove impassable. Travel along the river is hindered by division of the Riverworld into thousands of empires, monarchies, republics, and other social systems which evolve, each only a few kilometers long and housing 90 people per square kilometer. Because the distribution of populations along the river seems random, the character of these nations can vary wildly within

4796-629: The Poverty Point culture , Minoans and the Shang dynasty , rose to prominence in new areas. The Late Bronze Age collapse around 1200 BCE resulted in the disappearance of a number of civilizations and the beginning of the Greek Dark Ages . During this period iron started replacing bronze, leading to the Iron Age . In the 5th century BCE, history started being recorded as a discipline , which provided

4905-766: The colonization of the Americas and the Columbian Exchange . This expansion led to the Atlantic slave trade and the genocide of Native American peoples . This period also marked the Scientific Revolution , with great advances in mathematics , mechanics , astronomy and physiology . The late modern period (1800–present) saw the Technological and Industrial Revolution bring such discoveries as imaging technology , major innovations in transport and energy development . Influenced by Enlightenment ideals,

5014-541: The 20th century, due to the high population thereof. Originally the cutoff year was given as 2008 in To Your Scattered Bodies Go , but this later was modified to 1983 in The Dark Design . Purportedly, the cut-off indicated the point at which most of the human race had been purposefully annihilated by first contact with aliens visiting Earth. The protagonists later find this a creative fiction, produced by

5123-679: The 20th- and 21st-century humans are part of this last group). Most of the resurrected awaken in a body equivalent to that of their 25-year-old selves, in perfect health and free of any previous genetic or acquired defects. All heart disease, tooth decay, and blindness are gone, all amputated limbs are restored, and all scars, tattoos and other body modifications are removed; whereas certain neurological impulses (for instance, curiosity or chemical addiction) remain intact. These bodies do not age, and can regenerate nearly any non-fatal injury, including dismemberments and blindings. The new bodies are completely free of infection and seem resistant to it (albeit in

5232-510: The Americas and Europe experienced a period of political revolutions known as the Age of Revolution . The Napoleonic Wars raged through Europe in the early 1800s, Spain lost most of its colonies in the New World , while Europeans continued expansion into Africa  – where European control went from 10% to almost 90% in less than 50 years  – and Oceania. In the 19th century,

5341-829: The Mediterranean. In West Asia, the Achaemenid Empire 's system of centralized governance became the precursor to many later empires, while the Gupta Empire in India and the Han dynasty in China have been described as golden ages in their respective regions. Following the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, Europe entered the Middle Ages . During this period, Christianity and

5450-792: The Near East ( c.  1450 –1800) began with the final defeat of the Byzantine Empire , and the rise of the Ottoman Empire . Meanwhile, Japan entered the Edo period , the Qing dynasty rose in China and the Mughal Empire ruled much of India. Europe underwent the Renaissance , starting in the 15th century, and the Age of Discovery began with the exploring and colonizing of new regions. This included

5559-452: The Riverworld so any babies born there would lack sapience (see below ). Anyone who died at an age younger than 25 assumes a body equivalent to that lesser age, which then ages at a normal rate before stopping at 25. Should an individual die, they are resurrected elsewhere along the banks of the river at random. Some people even use this process to travel, though there is a limit to the number of resurrections available to each person; one of

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5668-399: The Riverworld's purpose. Another character, Peter Jairus Frigate , bears a striking resemblance to Farmer himself, and shares his initials. There are two versions of the character: one who appears early in the sequence, the third overall character to be introduced, and another, the "real" version, who concludes that the first was his brother who died as a baby, resurrected and used as a spy by

5777-409: The Riverworld. Children who died before age five are resurrected on a "Gardenworld": a physical paradise where the children were raised as Ethicals, who later created the Riverworld in hope of stimulating moral contemplation. The repetitive physical environment was to encourage a concern with inward rather than outward circumstances, while the poverty of natural resources was to prevent the development of

5886-452: The absence of hostile bacteria or viruses on the Riverworld). Initially hairless, the bodies grow cephalic hair and pubic hair at a normal rate. Men do not have foreskins or grow facial hair ; whereas women have intact hymens . It is impossible to conceive children on the Riverworld; all food provided by grails (see below) contain contraceptive substances, and there is no wathan generator on

5995-413: The approximate year 97,000 BCE were saved for the Riverworld project and thus were never resurrected anywhere. One of the themes of the series is the way historical characters change as a result of this cosmopolitan setting. For example, one of the characters depicted in the first book of the Riverworld series, To Your Scattered Bodies Go , is a tormented, drug-addicted Hermann Göring who ends up as

6104-492: The author himself. Some characters collaborate and some embark upon solo journeys of their own in this landscape. Starting in the "late twenty second century", the Riverworld has been engineered by an alien race to consist solely of a single long river-valley which snakes across its entire surface. The river's source is a small North Polar sea, from which it follows a course tightly zig-zagging across one hemisphere before flowing into another, along an equally labyrinthine path, to

6213-693: The author. Three books of the Riverworld series are analyzed in Mary Turzillo 's book Reader's Guide to Philip José Farmer . Antoine Ruiz of the Université d'Avignon (France) wrote a master's degree memoir entitled Redemption in Philip José Farmer's Riverworld in 1995. A licensed guidebook outlining the setting for use in the GURPS role-playing game , GURPS Riverworld was released in 1989 by Steve Jackson Games . Copies of this guidebook were provided to

6322-472: The authors of the stories published in Tales of Riverworld and Quest To Riverworld , as this book summarizes the chronology, characters, geography and technical details of the Riverworld universe. Since the publication of the original books, several authors have been licensed to use the Riverworld setting for their own stories - see "Works" towards the top of this page. A PC computer game version of Riverworld

6431-473: The available food, improving aesthetics , increasing knowledge or enhancing the exchange of resources. Humans are one of the most adaptable species, despite having a low or narrow tolerance for many of the earth's extreme environments. Currently the species is present in all eight biogeographical realms , although their presence in the Antarctic realm is very limited to research stations and annually there

6540-561: The best long-distance runners in the animal kingdom, but slower over short distances. Humans' thinner body hair and more productive sweat glands help avoid heat exhaustion while running for long distances. Compared to other apes, the human heart produces greater stroke volume and cardiac output and the aorta is proportionately larger. Like most animals, humans are a diploid and eukaryotic species. Each somatic cell has two sets of 23 chromosomes , each set received from one parent; gametes have only one set of chromosomes, which

6649-438: The body upon physical death and wander the universe without purpose. The first race to create wathans were adept tool users , but lacked individual sapience. Self-awareness increased their capabilities by an order of magnitude, and as the creators of wathan technology, they were able to "catch" wathans released by their own deaths, resurrecting themselves until individual resurrections became impossible. As this happened only to

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6758-640: The collapse of most global empires, leading to widespread decolonization. Following the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945, the United States and the USSR emerged as the remaining global superpowers . This led to a Cold War that saw a struggle for global influence, including a nuclear arms race and a space race , ending in the collapse of the Soviet Union. The current Information Age , spurred by

6867-771: The combined eastern and western Roman Empire in the 4th century AD. Bubonic plagues , first recorded in the 6th century AD, reduced the population by 50%, with the Black Death killing 75–200 million people in Eurasia and North Africa alone. Human population is believed to have reached one billion in 1800. It has since then increased exponentially, reaching two billion in 1930 and three billion in 1960, four in 1975, five in 1987 and six billion in 1999. It passed seven billion in 2011 and passed eight billion in November 2022. It took over two million years of human prehistory and history for

6976-535: The common language and create a religion called the Church of the Second Chance to spread it via travelling priests. The resurrected awaken with nearly-indestructible containers tied to their wrists, commonly called "grails", which produce food, drink, pieces of cloth, and luxury items, such as alcohol, tobacco, marijuana (and lighters for same), hair care utensils, makeup, and a hallucinogenic chewing gum known as "dreamgum". To operate, grails must be placed onto large, mushroom-shaped "grailstones", found at intervals along

7085-474: The continent, gradually replacing or interbreeding with local populations of archaic humans. Humans began exhibiting behavioral modernity about 160,000–70,000 years ago, and possibly earlier. This development was likely selected amidst natural climate change in Middle to Late Pleistocene Africa. The "out of Africa" migration took place in at least two waves, the first around 130,000 to 100,000 years ago,

7194-480: The creators of the Riverworld. The story gradually reveals that the Riverworld was created as a moral test for humanity. In the Riverworld universe sapience is the result of an artificially created soul, known as a wathan , created by a generator developed and distributed among various worlds by an unknown ancient alien race. Wathan generators create wathans which attach themselves to sufficiently advanced chordates . Wathans are indestructible but become detached from

7303-423: The desire to understand and influence phenomena having motivated humanity's development of science , technology , philosophy , mythology , religion , and other frameworks of knowledge ; humans also study themselves through such domains as anthropology , social science , history , psychology , and medicine . There are estimated to be more than eight billion living humans . Although some scientists equate

7412-511: The development of the Internet and Artificial Intelligence systems, sees the world becoming increasingly globalized and interconnected. Early human settlements were dependent on proximity to water and – depending on the lifestyle – other natural resources used for subsistence , such as populations of animal prey for hunting and arable land for growing crops and grazing livestock. Modern humans, however, have

7521-530: The early 1990s, it was decided to turn Riverworld into a shared universe anthology series, with numerous authors being invited to participate. Two volumes were released: On the Riverworld, every human who ever lived and died – from the earliest Neanderthals up to 1983 – is resurrected on the banks of a seemingly endless river on an unknown planet. Along the river's almost 18 million twisting and turning miles, some 36.6 billion humans are miraculously provided with food, but with no clue to

7630-623: The early 20th century, there has been continuous human presence in Antarctica through research stations and, since 2000, in space through habitation on the International Space Station . All modern humans are classified into the species Homo sapiens , coined by Carl Linnaeus in his 1735 work Systema Naturae . The generic name " Homo " is a learned 18th-century derivation from Latin homō , which refers to humans of either sex. The word human can refer to all members of

7739-668: The emergence of early civilizations . An urban revolution took place in the 4th millennium BCE with the development of city-states , particularly Sumerian cities located in Mesopotamia . It was in these cities that the earliest known form of writing, cuneiform script , appeared around 3000 BCE. Other major civilizations to develop around this time were Ancient Egypt and the Indus Valley Civilisation . They eventually traded with each other and invented technology such as wheels, plows and sails. Emerging by 3000 BCE,

7848-519: The extra "sidestream" book, Gods of Riverworld (1983). As to the novelette that remained a "standalone" — "Riverworld" — it underwent a slight expansion and was included in Farmer's collection Down in the Black Gang in 1971. After one more (final) expansion and polishing, it was included in the collection Riverworld and Other Stories in 1979. The five novels in the Riverworld series are as follows: In

7957-496: The finest color jackets ever done in the small press field. Some of these were the jackets for The Wheels of If by L. Sprague de Camp , Slaves of Sleep by L. Ron Hubbard and Kinsmen of the Dragon by Stanley Mullen , with the art for all three by Hannes Bok . Homo sapiens Humans ( Homo sapiens , meaning "thinking man" or "wise man") or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate , and

8066-440: The fourth version of what started out as Owe for the Flesh 13 years before finally saw publication as five novelettes: Of these five novelettes, four — all but "Riverworld" — were expanded and combined into the first two Riverworld novels as published by Putnam Publishing Group in 1971. Thus the fifth, and final, version of the Riverworld sequence comprises the four "mainstream" (Farmer's term) novels (1971-80) listed below, plus

8175-561: The genomes of 1,184 individuals from 11 populations and identified 1.6 million single nucleotide polymorphisms . African populations harbor the highest number of private genetic variants. While many of the common variants found in populations outside of Africa are also found on the African continent, there are still large numbers that are private to these regions, especially Oceania and the Americas . By 2010 estimates, humans have approximately 22,000 genes. By comparing mitochondrial DNA , which

8284-580: The global average life expectancy at birth of a girl is estimated to be 74.9 years compared to 70.4 for a boy. There are significant geographical variations in human life expectancy, mostly correlated with economic development – for example, life expectancy at birth in Hong Kong is 87.6 years for girls and 81.8 for boys, while in the Central African Republic , it is 55.0 years for girls and 50.6 for boys. The developed world

8393-443: The human lifestyle. Genes and the environment influence human biological variation in visible characteristics, physiology , disease susceptibility, mental abilities, body size, and life span. Though humans vary in many traits, humans are among the least genetically diverse species. Any two humans are at least 99.5% genetically similar. Humans are sexually dimorphic : generally, males have greater body strength and females have

8502-550: The human population to reach one billion and only 207 years more to grow to 7 billion. The combined biomass of the carbon of all the humans on Earth in 2018 was estimated at 60 million tons, about 10 times larger than that of all non-domesticated mammals. In 2018, 4.2 billion humans (55%) lived in urban areas, up from 751 million in 1950. The most urbanized regions are Northern America (82%), Latin America (81%), Europe (74%) and Oceania (68%), with Africa and Asia having nearly 90% of

8611-505: The human population was reduced to a small number of breeding pairs. The forces of natural selection have continued to operate on human populations, with evidence that certain regions of the genome display directional selection in the past 15,000 years. The human genome was first sequenced in 2001 and by 2020 hundreds of thousands of genomes had been sequenced. In 2012 the International HapMap Project had compared

8720-442: The last surviving species of the genus Homo . They are great apes characterized by their hairlessness , bipedalism , and high intelligence . Humans have large brains , enabling more advanced cognitive skills that enable them to thrive and adapt in varied environments, develop highly complex tools , and form complex social structures and civilizations . Humans are highly social , with individual humans tending to belong to

8829-567: The late Miocene epoch. During this split, chromosome 2 was formed from the joining of two other chromosomes, leaving humans with only 23 pairs of chromosomes, compared to 24 for the other apes. Following their split with chimpanzees and bonobos, the hominins diversified into many species and at least two distinct genera. All but one of these lineages – representing the genus Homo and its sole extant species Homo sapiens  – are now extinct. The genus Homo evolved from Australopithecus . Though fossils from

8938-409: The main protagonists is warned by the creators of the Riverworld that after 777 deliberate suicides he is in danger of failing to resurrect after his next death. No one who was less than five years old at death is resurrected on the Riverworld, nor are people deemed to be incurably insane (it is eventually revealed that these people were resurrected on another planet, Gardenworld). No hominids born before

9047-404: The masterminds of the resurrection. Undercover agents of these masters placed on the Riverworld would identify themselves as having died after 1983 so as to be recognized by fellow agents. In each area are initially three groups of people: a large group from one time period and place, a smaller group from another time and place, and a very small group of people from random times and places (most of

9156-399: The new specialty press instead went on to publish fiction by John W. Campbell, Jr. , L. Ron Hubbard , Robert A. Heinlein , A. E. van Vogt , and others. Ultimately, however, they were not successful and finally ceased publishing in 1957, having produced 19 volumes under the Shasta imprint. According to Robert Weinberg, "Using an involved, multicolor printing process, Shasta featured some of

9265-555: The ongoing mass extinction of other forms of life. Within the last century, humans have explored challenging environments such as Antarctica , the deep sea , and outer space . Human habitation within these hostile environments is restrictive and expensive, typically limited in duration, and restricted to scientific , military , or industrial expeditions. Humans have visited the Moon and made their presence known on other celestial bodies through human-made robotic spacecraft . Since

9374-442: The only primates to have short, relatively flush canine teeth . Humans have characteristically crowded teeth, with gaps from lost teeth usually closing up quickly in young individuals. Humans are gradually losing their third molars , with some individuals having them congenitally absent. Humans share with chimpanzees a vestigial tail, appendix , flexible shoulder joints, grasping fingers and opposable thumbs . Humans also have

9483-500: The original supposition of the river's length is 20,000,000 miles, as said by Alice Hargreaves and attributed to Peter Frigate, shortly after the defeat of Hermann Goering. (Books I, II, and III later state the river is 10,000,000 miles (16,000,000 km) long). There are no seasons, and daily variations are metronomic. The only animal life consists of fish and soil worms. The vegetation is lush and of great variety, including trees, flowering vines, several kinds of fast-growing bamboo, and

9592-433: The owner, are taken by force by the captor. The slaver will usually provide the slave with enough food to keep him or her alive, as once a person dies their grail becomes useless. Of special value are "free grails", originally found atop each of the grailstones as a demonstration of their relationship. Free grails can be opened by any individual, and as such, are valued for an extra ration of goods at each interval. Throughout

9701-474: The palm of the hand and on the soles of the feet. It is estimated that the worldwide average height for an adult human male is about 171 cm (5 ft 7 in), while the worldwide average height for adult human females is about 159 cm (5 ft 3 in). Shrinkage of stature may begin in middle age in some individuals but tends to be typical in the extremely aged . Throughout history, human populations have universally become taller, probably as

9810-511: The population density varies from one region to another, and large stretches of surface are almost completely uninhabited, like Antarctica and vast swathes of the ocean. Most humans (61%) live in Asia; the remainder live in the Americas (14%), Africa (14%), Europe (11%), and Oceania (0.5%). Estimates of the population at the time agriculture emerged in around 10,000 BC have ranged between 1 million and 15 million. Around 50–60 million people lived in

9919-409: The possible meaning or purpose of this strange afterlife. Some people set sail upon the great river to quest for the meaning of their resurrection, and to find and confront their mysterious "benefactors". Among the denizens of the Riverworld, we meet Sir Richard Francis Burton , Mark Twain , Odysseus , Cyrano de Bergerac , Hermann Göring , Tom Mix , and many others, including a modest alter ego of

10028-415: The publisher Melvin Korshak . This document was published unaltered in 1983 by Phantasia Press as River of Eternity and is generally considered to be of mostly academic interest. With no prospect of imminent publication, Farmer moved on to other projects. But in 1963 and '64, he rewrote the material into a second version and in late 1964 into a third, which he now called Owe for a River . This version

10137-439: The riverbanks, which produce an electrical discharge three times per day (corresponding to the times of breakfast, lunch and dinner). As agriculture is absent, and indeed impossible on the Riverworld, the grails are vital to an individual's survival, and cannot be opened except by their individual owners. Nevertheless, "grail slavery" is not uncommon, in which a person is held captive and the contents of his or her grail, retrieved by

10246-532: The same sea. The river has an average depth of 1.5 miles (2.4 km), and its width ranges from 6.8 miles (10.9 km) to 24.8 miles (39.9 km). It is shallow near the shore but plunges to enormous depths towards the channel. The banks are generally smooth and gentle, expanding into wide plains on either side, then assuming jagged hills before an impenetrable mountain range . The valley averages 9 miles (14 km) in width, but includes narrows and occasional widenings into lakes with islands. From source to mouth,

10355-404: The second ( Southern Dispersal ) around 70,000 to 50,000 years ago. H. sapiens proceeded to colonize all the continents and larger islands, arriving in Eurasia 125,000 years ago, Australia around 65,000 years ago, the Americas around 15,000 years ago, and remote islands such as Hawaii , Easter Island , Madagascar , and New Zealand in the years 300 to 1280 CE. Human evolution was not

10464-547: The sense of humanity). The native English term man can refer to the species generally (a synonym for humanity ) as well as to human males. It may also refer to individuals of either sex. Despite the fact that the word animal is colloquially used as an antonym for human , and contrary to a common biological misconception , humans are animals . The word person is often used interchangeably with human , but philosophical debate exists as to whether personhood applies to all humans or all sentient beings , and further if

10573-481: The series, several main characters lose their original grails and thus must seek free grails to survive. Though the grails provide for all needs and the climate is hospitable, further attempts to affect the environment are frustrated by the near-complete lack of metals and ores on the planet. The only building materials available are bamboo, wood, and human or fish bones and hides. Pockets of flint (eventually depleted) provide material for tools. With technology limited to

10682-427: The stories is Monat Graatut, who poses as an ally and friend of Richard Francis Burton. The reason given for the collector was that humans were both extraordinarily civilized (capable of "passing on" within a single lifetime, as did Gautama Buddha ), and extraordinarily barbaric (capable of genocide , slavery etc.), and therefore might or might not be trusted with wathan technology; an ambiguity meant for resolution by

10791-433: The term "humans" with all members of the genus Homo , in common usage it generally refers to Homo sapiens , the only extant member. All other members of the genus Homo , which are now extinct, are known as archaic humans , and the term "modern human" is used to distinguish Homo sapiens from archaic humans. Anatomically modern humans emerged around 300,000 years ago in Africa, evolving from Homo heidelbergensis or

10900-427: The transition are scarce, the earliest members of Homo share several key traits with Australopithecus . The earliest record of Homo is the 2.8 million-year-old specimen LD 350-1 from Ethiopia , and the earliest named species are Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis which evolved by 2.3 million years ago. H. erectus (the African variant is sometimes called H. ergaster ) evolved 2 million years ago and

11009-509: The true Peter Jairus Frigate appears—the one in the earlier volumes was in fact an impostor (actually his brother who died in infancy and who was raised on the Gardenworld). Note that in Farmer's other major series of books, World of Tiers , a major character also has the same initials as the author, Paul Janus Finnegan , who usually goes by the nickname Kickaha . This character is also a fictionalized (or one imagines an idealized) version of

11118-619: The villain. At one point, the pilot was available online through the Joost software worldwide except in the United States and Canada. It can be found on the Alliance Atlantis Sci-Fi channel. In 2010, a three-hour TV film, Riverworld , was produced and released by Syfy (formerly The Sci-fi Channel) in the US and by Studio Universal elsewhere, written by Robert Hewitt Wolfe . The protagonist

11227-409: The wake of the success of the Riverworld novels, Farmer issued a general request to anyone who might have the original manuscript. An 80,000-word document entitled "River of Eternity" was then discovered in a garage and returned to Farmer. This turned out to be, not the original, but a version produced in the mid-1950s by Farmer (who had entirely forgotten about it) from the third "book" at the request of

11336-440: The whole of their own species had "passed on". This cycle occurred several times until the creation of humanity. Humanity's creators are a race of aliens known, among their human allies, as "the Ethicals", who brought wathan technology to Earth, installing both a generator to produce wathans and a collector to catch and store wathans—and the human personas and memories accumulated by them—for later retrieval. The only Ethical seen in

11445-468: The wisest and most ethically advanced wathans, the people supposed a process of "passing on", comparable to the Indian religious concept of Moksha . With this in mind, they traveled the universe, placing wathan generators on worlds that could host wathans, thereby creating other sentient species. Once they created a species they determined they could trust, they tasked them with creating more sapient species after

11554-440: The world's 3.4 billion rural population. Problems for humans living in cities include various forms of pollution and crime , especially in inner city and suburban slums . Most aspects of human physiology are closely homologous to corresponding aspects of animal physiology. The dental formula of humans is: 2.1.2.3 2.1.2.3 . Humans have proportionately shorter palates and much smaller teeth than other primates. They are

11663-579: Was released in October 1998 by Cryo Interactive. A television series loosely based on the Riverworld saga went into production for the Sci-Fi channel in 2001 but only the feature-length pilot episode Riverworld was completed. It was first aired in 2003. It used elements from To Your Scattered Bodies Go and The Fabulous Riverboat , though it replaced the books' hero, Sir Richard Francis Burton , with an American astronaut and King John of England with Nero as

11772-408: Was submitted to Ballantine Books, but it was rejected as being too much of an adventure story without sufficient deeper philosophical implications. Undaunted, he sent the manuscript to Frederik Pohl who at that time edited a number of prominent science fiction magazines. Pohl suggested that Farmer break the novel into several novelettes for serial publication in his periodicals. Farmer agreed, and thus

11881-402: Was the first archaic human species to leave Africa and disperse across Eurasia. H. erectus also was the first to evolve a characteristically human body plan . Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago from a species commonly designated as either H. heidelbergensis or H. rhodesiensis , the descendants of H. erectus that remained in Africa. H. sapiens migrated out of

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