The Dark Design

The Dark Design (1977) is a science fiction novel by American writer Philip José Farmer (1918-2009), the third in his series of Riverworld books. The title is derived from lines in Sir Richard Francis Burton's poem The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî:

And still the Weaver plies his loom, whose warp and woof is wretched Man
Weaving th' unpattern'd dark design, so dark we doubt it owns a plan.

The Dark Design was the author's first bestseller.