To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip José Farmer

All those who ever lived on Earth have found themselves resurrected -- healthy, young, and naked as newborns -- on the grassy banks of a mighty river, in a world unknown. Miraculously provided with food, but with no clues to the meaning of their strange new afterlife, billions of people from every period of Earth's history -- and prehistory -- must start again.

Sir Richard Francis Burton would be the first to glimpse the incredible way-station, a link between worlds. This forbidden sight would spur the renowned nineteenth century explorer to uncover the truth. Along with a remarkable group of compatriots, including Alice Liddell Hargreaves (the Victorian girl who was the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland), an English-speaking Neanderthal, a WWII Holocaust survivor, and a wise extraterrestrial, Burton sets sail on the magnificent river. His mission: to confront humankind's mysterious benefactors, and learn the true purpose -- innocent or evil -- of the Riverworld...

To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971)
Book One of the Riverworld Series
Ballantine Books
cover art by John Stevens
216 pages
my rating : 8/10