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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: When an actor who played Robin Hood on a 1950s children's TV show wakes up in Riverworld, he decides to live out his dreams and forms a new band of Merry Men (including Abraham Lincoln as Little John). Unfortunately, he didn't count on running into Al Capone, who has hijacked a thriving technocracy run by Jules Verne... Set in Philip Jose Farmer's "Riverworld" universe, this story written with Farmer's permission.

eBook Publisher: Wildside Press, Published: 1992
Fictionwise Release Date: January 2002

This eBook is part of the following series:

• John Gregory Betancourt's Riverworld Series

32 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [151 KB], eReader (PDB) [54 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [43 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [39 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [105 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [111 KB], hiebook (KML) [120 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [66 KB], iSilo (PDB) [35 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [44 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [72 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [62 KB]
Words: 12731
Reading time: 36-50 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

When you're a kid, reading science fiction is the ultimate escape. You get to explore strange new worlds, boldly go where even television shows can't take you, and meet all sorts of fascinating characters in incredible situations. It's Wonderland.

When you've been writing the stuff for years, though, that initial gosh-wow feeling starts to fade. You become tired, a little jaded, a little unimpressed. Your uncle is an Martian? Aren't they all. Alien fleets are massing near Jupiter? Don't they always. The galaxy's collapsing? It happens a thousand times a year. That's when you have to go back to Wonderland.

When I was asked to write a story set in Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld, at first I was thrilled and excited. Here was a trip to Wonderland already scheduled with the bus parked adn waiting at my door. The books in the Riverworld series--To Your Scattered Bodies Go, The Fabulous Riverboat, The Dark Design, The Magic Labyrinth, and The Gods of Riverworld--are filled with that magic, that sense of wonder, that draws children like moths to its flame.

It was great. I reread the series, picked up the themes I liked, and and refilled myself with that sense of wonder, I wrote the best story I could, full of swashbuckling action, heroic escapes, and favorite historical characters.

It seems critics and fans alike thought "The Merry Men of Riverworld" among the best non-Farmer Riverworld stories in the collection. I hope you agree.

--John Betancourt