Rise from the dust

The novel begins with the death of the main character - Richard Burton . But after death, he is reborn in a world through which a large river flows. Together with him on the bank of the river all the dead are resurrected. Burton, who, thanks to someone's intervention, woke up earlier than other people, learns that the Resurrection is an experiment conducted by an alien race, whose representatives call themselves "ethics." And he decides to reveal the secrets of this world.

In this novel, many real characters are derived. This is the famous explorer of Africa, Richard Burton, and Alice Liddell - the prototype of the heroine of Lewis Carroll ’s novel “ Alice in Wonderland ”, and Hermann Goering - a Nazi military leader, and many others.

The novel “Rise from the Dust” became the first novel of Philip Farmer’s fantastic cycle “The World of the River”, consisting of five novels and a number of short stories, some of which are written by other authors. This cycle has become the calling card of Philip Farmer.

The first version of the novel was called “I Owe for the Flesh” (“Seek Flesh”). It was created in the mid-1950s for a competition that was held by the Shasta publishing house. The novel won the competition and was scheduled for publication in 1962 there ($ 1,000 premium) and in Pocket Books (which allocated a fee of $ 3,000), for writers of those years the amount was substantial. However, the director of Shasta, M. Korshak, secretly invested money from the premiums and fees of John Campbell and Raymond Jones into an expensive illustrated book of a Hollywood make-up artist and dragged out time — he forced Farmer to rewrite and cut the novel. As a result, the book Korshaka failed, ruining and publishing. The manuscript of the Farmer novel was lost by them, the second version was found only in the early 1980s and was released in 1983 under the name “River of Eternity” ^{[2] [3]} . Because of this, Farmer was forced to temporarily leave the writing career ^{[4] [5]} .

As a result, Philip Farmer created a new version of the novel. It was originally published in two parts in the journal Worlds of Tomorrow - The Day of the Great Shout (Day of the Great Shout, January 1965) ^[6] and The Suicide Express (Suicide Express, March 1966) ^[3] . The first part in 1966 was nominated for the "Hugo" award (nomination "Small Form (Short Fiction)"). One of the first versions of the novel, the story "Riverworld" ("The World of the River"), was published in January 1966 in the same magazine "Worlds of Tomorrow". There was another main character in it - Tom Mix. In 1979, a revised version of this story was published in the collection Riverworld & Other Stories (The World of the River and Other Stories) ^[7] . The name of this story eventually stuck with the whole cycle.

A separate edition of the novel was released in 1971 by the publisher Putnam . The name of the novel is a line from one of the seven "Sacred Sonnets" of the English poet of the XVI century John Donne :

From the corners of the Earth, although it is round,
Blow, angels! Arise, Arise
From the dead, innumerable camp souls!
Hurry, souls, in former bodies!

Original Text (Eng.)

At the round earth's imagined corners, blow
Your trumpets, Angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of the souls, and to your scattered bodies go,

- Donn J. Poems / Translated by D. V. Schedrovitsky .

The novel was repeatedly translated into different languages.

The novel was a great success and was awarded the Hugo Award for Best Romance in 1972. After Philip Farmer released 4 sequels - “ Fairy Tale Ship ”, “ Dark Design ”, “ Magic Labyrinth ” and “ Gods of the River World ”, as well as two inter-author collections - “ Legends of the World of the River ” and “ Secrets of the World of the River ”.

In 2003, an attempt was made to film the novels of the cycle. On the Sci-Fi Channel , the film “Riverworld” was released (“The World of the River”, better known in Russian as “The Gods of the River World ”), which was supposed to be the “pilot” of the planned series. However, the film was unsuccessful, with the result that the series was never put into production ^[8] . In 2010, the same channel, the Sci-Fi Channel, made a second attempt at adaptation, the film World of the River , a remake of the 2003 film. However, this film received even worse reviews than the first one ^[9] .

• Hugo Award for Best Novel : 1972 (winner)
• Locus Award for Best Novel : 1972 (2nd Place)

The first edition in Russian was published in 1991 - the novel translated by Mikhail Nakhmanson was published along with the novel “The Fairytale Ship” in the Russian Troika publishing house under the title “Return to your destroyed bodies” ^[10] . In the same year of 1991, the novel was released separately jointly by the Terra and Griffon publishing houses under the title “To disappear in their scattered bodies”, who was the author of the translation was not indicated ^[11] .

In 1993, the novel along with the novel “The Fairy Ship” was published under the title “Rise from Dust” by the Troll Publishing House in the new series “The Sword and the Staff”. For this edition, M. Nachmanson did an updated translation ^[12] . In this translation, the novel was republished in 2001 in the “Golden Library of Fiction” series ^[13] .

In 1996, the novel was released in the series “The Worlds of Philip Farmer” by the Riga publishing house “ Polaris ” in a new translation - Nadezhda Sosnovskaya - called “Return to your bodies scattered” ^[14] . In this translation, the novel was republished in 2007 in the series “Masterpieces of Fiction” by the publishing house “ Eksmo ” ^[15] .

• Shikarev C. Lord of Worlds and Heroes. Creativity Philip Jose Farmer / / World fiction . - No. 69; May 2009 . - p . 44-47 .

• "Rise from the dust" on the site " Laboratory of Science Fiction "

• English text To Your Scattered Bodies Go freely available
• List of publications of “To Your Scattered Bodies Go” in ISFDB (Eng.)