Book where people come back to life

[BlondeTwist]

Hi,
I'm trying to find this book, but I can't remember the author or the title.
Aliens come to earth and they create these towers. When someone dies, these nanites are released in their system and they are shipped to these towers, where they're shipped into space and brought back to life for the purpose to send humans to contact other life in the universe.

I know the author at one point wrote a different book where humans leave the planet and end up on a system of planets that resemble beads on a chain?
Any help would very much be appreciated! Thanks!

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

It's about half the plot of Farmer's Riverboat books.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[iansales]

The book with the worlds like "beads on a chain" is Eric Brown's Helix. You might be thinking of Philip José Farmer's - who wrote the Riverworld series - World of Tiers series.

 

[The Judge]

I've read a book which has the same premise of the alien towers and the dead being resurrected and sent into space but I've not read any Farmer. I have, though, read some Eric Brown which makes me think this might be his, too.

I can't quickly find my copy of Kethani to check, but that novel is basically a string of linked short stories peopled with the same characters dealing with the aftermath of an -- apparently -- benevolent alien invasion of Earth (well, the UK at least), and I think this concept might appear in one of those.