The Dark Design

The Dark Design (1977) is a science fiction novel by American writer Philip José Farmer, the third in the 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.