One of my favorite parts of the Riverworld books was Samuel Clemens trying to build the Not For Hire. The guy wakes up in a world where nobody has factories, hardly any metal exists, and everybody else is just trying to get by... and he decides he's going to build a steam-powered riverboat.
That's just such a Sam Clemens thing to do. While everyone else is busy fighting over territory or trying to survive, he's thinking about industry and getting back to making things. It wasn't just about having a boat. He wanted to prove civilization could come back.
That whole story has always stuck with me. It's one of the reasons I like the Riverworld series so much. It wasn't just people running around having adventures. It was about rebuilding, figuring things out, and refusing to accept that humanity had to stay primitive forever.
Sector9
"Still reading beyond the stars."