The story "Riverworld," was expanded and reprinted in 1979 as River world and Other Stories. The first novel in the series was To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971); sequels include The Fabulous Riverboat (1971); The Dark Design, (1977); The Magic Labyrinth (1980); and Gods of Riverworld (1983).

Everything that Farmer has ever written is directly related to the Riverworld series, which is the product of a lifetime of speculating, reading and writing. The basic idea for the series first appears in I Owe for the Flesh, the prize-winning novel Farmer wrote in 1953, only to be cheated out of his award money. In addition, the series is filled with countless spin-offs from Farmer's previous fiction, so that the Riverworld novels are actually a grand elaboration of earlier ideas and situations. However, some works may be singled out as Farmer's best-known previous attempts to explore Riverworld's basic premise: some alien, controlling force is at...