To Your Scattered Bodies Go
One of my favorite science fiction novels is To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip José Farmer. The main character is the famous explorer and adventurer, Richard Francis Burton, who, seemingly immediately after dying, finds himself (along with everyone who has ever lived on Earth), naked and hairless, reborn on a strange planet with a river thats spirals around the entire surface from pole to pole.
The strangeness doesn't stop there. All the residents of the new planet (dubbed Riverworld) have issued a metal can that only they can open. By placing the can into one of the large mushroom shaped stones placed at regular intervals along the river's shore and waiting for a thrice-daily jolt of lightning, the cans are opened to reveal a multi-course meal. (Woe to the person who loses his or her can, also called a grail, because there's not much else to eat on Riverworld).
What's going on? Who issued the cans? Why is every person on the planet -- including Neanderthals -- here? Those are the questions Burton and his companion (Alice Liddel, the inspiration for Lewis Carrol's Alice) and all the other characters attempt to discover.
There are several other books in the series. The second one, The Fabulous Riverboat is really good, too, but the other ones are pretty lousy. But don't let that dissuade you from reading To Your Scattered Bodies Go and The Fabulous Riverboat. $10.74 on Amazon
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I'll second that recommendation.
The series definitely became tiresome after a few sequels, but this first one just rocked.
Sci-Fi Channel made an atrocious low-budget movie based on the book. Avoid that like avian flu.
I'm in the middle of this one right now, thanks for the suggestion!
The Sci-fi movie (which wasn't great) lead me to the book which for the most part I liked, but the others did get really tiresome and in the end the big reveal was very disappointing. Still don't understand it.