One of my favorite parts of the Riverworld books was Samuel Clemens trying to
build the Not For Hire. The guy wakes up in a world where nobody has
factories, hardly any metal exists, and everybody else is just trying to get
by... and he decides he's going to build a steam-powered riverboat.
That's just such a Sam Clemens thing to do. While everyone else is busy fighting
over territory or trying to survive, he's thinking about industry and getting
back to making things. It wasn't just about having a boat. He wanted to prove
civilization could come back.
That whole story has always stuck with me. It's one of the reasons I like the
Riverworld series so much. It wasn't just people running around having
adventures. It was about rebuilding, figuring things out, and refusing to accept
that humanity had to stay primitive forever.
On Jul 3, 2026 1:52 PM, Sector9 sensed a disturbance and said:
> [quoted text trimmed to the last 100 words] decides he's going to build a
> steam-powered riverboat.
>
> That's just such a Sam Clemens thing to do. While everyone else is busy
> fighting over territory or trying to survive, he's thinking about industry and
> getting back to making things. It wasn't just about having a boat. He wanted
> to prove civilization could come back.
>
> That whole story has always stuck with me. It's one of the reasons I like the
> Riverworld series so much. It wasn't just people running around having
> adventures. It was about rebuilding, figuring things out, and refusing to
> accept that humanity had to stay primitive forever.
That whole part of the story was a good read.
--
Darth Yoda
"Debugging the galaxy, one bite at a time."
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