# Help me ID this SciFi Story
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [November 29, 2005, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289 "2005-11-29T23:10:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2005, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/1 "2005-11-29T23:10:54Z")
This is dimly remembered. I am not hopeful we can nail it down, but:
Essentially Aliens, in a far distant future, with Technology so advanced that they seemed god-like, spent a great deal of time Resurrecting dead humans, all of us me, Cecil, Lincoln, Aunt Sue etc. We were brought to live in their perfect time.
It may have been more than just humans (it may have been all the sentient life in the Universe).
This may not have been main the point of the story, it may (or may not) in fact have been just a mention in the wrap up or epilogue.
Any idea what I am talking about?
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### Author:  [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2005, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/2 "2005-11-29T23:14:05Z")
Sounds like the _Riverworld_ series to me.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2005, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/3 "2005-11-29T23:27:21Z")
Um, not to be short with you, but do you have any other details at all? There are probably a few thousand stories that match what you’ve told us thus far.
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### Author:  [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2005, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/4 "2005-11-29T23:38:00Z")
I don’t sorry – didn’t realize there were so many/that it was such a common theme – I think the Aliens were benevolent
Riverworld? Thnx I’ll checkl that out
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### Author:  [@Iacob\_Matthew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iacob_Matthew)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2005, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/5 "2005-11-30T00:19:07Z")
I could probably name a dozen, but here’s a question which might narrow it down a bit-
Short story, (say \>60 pages) Novella, Novel, or series?
_Riverworld_ is a series, by Phillip Jose Farmer- a “trilogy in at least five parts” from the second book on each promises the next will be “the thrilling conclusion.”. The first (and definitively best) book in the series is _To Your Scattered Bodies Go_.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2005, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/6 "2005-11-30T00:54:25Z")
Sounds much like Riverworld. There were several short appearances of the novel ( **To Your Scattered Bodies Go** is a fixup of two stories (“The Day of the Great Shout” and “The Suicide Express”), and “The Felled Star” and “The Fabulous Riverboat” were made into a novel with the latter name. There was at least one story that didn’t seem to make it into the books, but may have been collected elsewhere, and various collection written by other authors using the concept.
See [http://www.pjfarmer.com/riverwld.htm](http://www.pjfarmer.com/riverwld.htm) for a list.
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### Author:  [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2005, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/7 "2005-11-30T01:05:30Z")
I think **detop** and **Reality Chuck** have nailed it.
Considering the occasional alien and all, it sure sounds like it. A question: In your rememberance, did the story also include Neandertals (Neanderthals)? If so, this is definitely it.
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### Author:  [@Binarydrone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binarydrone)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2005, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/8 "2005-11-30T01:24:04Z")
> [@LiveOnAPlane](#):
>
> I think **detop** and **Reality Chuck** have nailed it.
>
> Considering the occasional alien and all, it sure sounds like it. A question: In your rememberance, did the story also include Neandertals (Neanderthals)? If so, this is definitely it.
Did the aliens look like sea-horses? Were there language implants?
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2005, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/9 "2005-11-30T01:58:24Z")
> [@Binarydrone](#):
>
> Did the aliens look like sea-horses? Were there language implants?
**Seahorse in the Sky**? by (I want to say Cooper)…
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### Author:  [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2005, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/10 "2005-11-30T02:31:15Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#):
>
> **Seahorse in the Sky**? by (I want to say Cooper)…
I don’t think so. This was by Edmund Cooper, and was, IMHO, a really good science fiction novel.
But, as best as I can remember, it involved an alien spacecraft glomming on to an aircraft in flight and duplicating the passengers, then putting the dupes on an alien planet.
What they went through, figuring out how to survive, how to figure out how their supplies were replenished there, and eventually discovering what they really were was a fascinating piece of work. I would definitely recommend this book.
It just doesn’t seem to fit what the OP was describing, (just my take, I could be wrong certainly). But that is a really good alternative guess that I had not thought of. It could be…it certainly could be…
And thanx for the memories.
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2005, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/11 "2005-11-30T02:42:29Z")
Yeah, but Riverworld was named two hours before I came on-line tonight…
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2005, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/12 "2005-11-30T05:32:51Z")
I think it’s fairly certain that it’s not the Riverworld series that jimmmy is talking about. He said that it’s a short story. The only short stories in the Riverworld series never mention that aliens have caused all humans to be resurrected. Indeed, the Riverworld is almost exclusively about the lives of humans resurrected on the Riverworld. Only in the later novels do we discover that aliens have anything to do with it, and we don’t learn much about the aliens. The humans are not “brought to live in their [the aliens’] perfect time,” so that doesn’t fit at all. The aliens in the Riverworld didn’t want humans to know that they existed.
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### Author:  [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2005, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/13 "2005-11-30T12:33:52Z")
Thanks for the responses everyone – again I apologize if what I asked was too frustratingly airy.
Based on the great synopses I definitely will check out the Riverworld sieries which I of course have heard of but am fairly sure I never read.
**Wendall Wagner** helped make clear what poor writing and memory on my part did not – but I obviously shouldn’t have taken up CS thread space with such a vague request – sorry about that - I simply didn’t realize that it was such a common theme! :smack:
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### Author:  [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2005, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/14 "2005-11-30T12:38:21Z")
Sounds alot like the later _Rama_ books by Arthur C. Clark.
Did one of the aliens have a human body with the head of an eagle?
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### Author:  [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2005, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/15 "2005-11-30T12:43:46Z")
B Malion Thanks – I will check that out too – we better close this tho – pretty embarassing.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2005, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/16 "2005-11-30T12:58:01Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I think it’s fairly certain that it’s not the Riverworld series that jimmmy is talking about. He said that it’s a short story. The only short stories in the Riverworld series never mention that aliens have caused all humans to be resurrected.
I’m not sure that’s true. Aside from the original short stories by Farmer that became “To Your Scattered Bodies Go”, there are three books of Riverworld short stories, and I can’t recall if any of them recount the story background. The books are **Riverworld and Other Stories** by Philip Jose Farmer, which contains two Riverworld stories not directly connected to the story arc of his main Riverworld series, and two anthologies, **Tales of Riverworld** and **Quest for Riverworld** , both edited by Farmer, each containing one Farmer story and the rest by other SF writers. All of these are a bit hard to find, but you can look in used book shops and sites.
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### Author:  [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2005, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-id-this-scifi-story/333289/17 "2005-11-30T15:17:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> But, as best as I can remember, it involved an alien spacecraft glomming on to an aircraft in flight and duplicating the passengers, then putting the dupes on an alien planet.
That rings a bell – something I read maybe thirty years ago. Definitely a British author, and my first guess would be Edmund Cooper.