If what hooked you in Riverworld was trekking upriver with Burton while juggling Twain, Alice, and even a repentant Göring, you’ll love how Hyperion assembles seven pilgrims bound for the Time Tombs and the Shrike. Each traveler’s tale reframes the quest—just as Burton’s expedition keeps being redefined by who joins it—turning the group’s frictions into momentum and revelations.

Drawn to Riverworld’s grand scope—every human reborn along an endless river, civilizations blooming around the Grails, and Burton’s long arc toward the tower? In The Years of Rice and Salt, recurring souls (B, K, and I) meet across lifetimes—from Timur’s wars to Chinese oceanic empires and Islamic scientific renaissances—probing fate, meaning, and history with the same sweeping ambition.

If the Ethicals’ godlike experiment in Riverworld—resurrecting everyone and testing humanity—sparked your curiosity, Surface Detail dives into virtual Hells where entire civilizations imprison souls. As Lededje Y’breq seeks justice and Culture Minds wage a shadow war over afterlife ethics, the book interrogates the same thorny questions of who gets to play god and why.

Compelled by the central riddle in Riverworld—who built the resurrection world, what is the tower, why the Grails?—you’ll be riveted by the Zone in Roadside Picnic. Stalker Red Schuhart navigates lethal anomalies and alien detritus toward the Golden Sphere, seeking answers that remain tantalizingly out of reach, capturing that same eerie, awe-filled mystery.

If Riverworld’s audacity—resurrecting everyone from prehistory to Burton and Twain—gave you a thrill, Lord of Light delivers that same rush. On a colonized world where tech makes ‘gods,’ Sam (Mahasamatman) rebels against a pantheon that controls reincarnation. The dizzying set pieces and idea fireworks evoke the wonder you felt chasing the river’s source.