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The Fabulous Riverboat
Sam Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, travels the river in pursuit of his dream. A fabulous riverboat that will inspire wonder in all who see it. The Riverworld is rich in people but poor in minerals. His companion Erik Bloodaxe has a metal axe, so Sam knows that somewhere on the riverworld there must be iron, but where?
Like Burton, Sam has a subhuman companion, only Joe Miller could hardly be called a sub anything! One of a very rare variety of the species homo, one whose bones have yet to be found today, Joe is enormous, a "Titanthrop" who despite being a tremendous fighter, is also a sentimental sort with a lisp.
His dream seems ever further away, until X, the mysterious stranger, arranges for a meteorite to fall nearby - close enough that Sam and his compatriots are nearly killed by the blast. After the devastation from the impact is cleaned up by the Ethicals, the area of the fall is much as it was before, except that now there are resources beneath the soil that Sam knows about, and there is no local heirarchy left to stop him.
In order to build the riverboat, many lines have to be crossed. An alliance with King John of England (so despicable that no potential heir to the throne was ever called John again) is just one of the many compromises Sam has to make to prevent others from taking the only known source of metals on the planet.
With the plantagenet king as completely untrusworthy co-ruler, they create the state of Parolando on the part of the river where the mysterious stranger has arranged for the meteorite to conveniently fall.
Parolando is esperanto for Pair land, or perhaps more accurately Twain land! It now has access to most of the resources it needs to create Sam Clemens dream, and as such is the only place in the rivervalley where any kind of technology is possible. More recruits of the renegade Ethical join the enterprise - Odysseus, Liver Eating Johnston and Cyrano De Bergerac, who has turned up with Sam Clemens earthly wife in tow...
The Church of the Second Chance is spreading its message up and down the river. The message is just that, humanity has been given a second chance to redeem itself, this time on a world that has no disease or hunger. One of the missionaries in Parolando is a Brother Fenikso - better known to us as Hermann Goring.
The Riverboat finally gets built after many years of fragile alliances and a great deal of bloodshed. After so much effort, Sam is almost totally destroyed when King John manages to take over the riverboat for himself, and leaves Sam behind, shouting curses at his departing dream.
Onward to: