Forcing a specific order

This may come across as a rather odd question.   However, is there a way
to force PostgreSQL to return rows in a very specific order?  I am
currently facing running one three-way-join query which will last 50+
seconds.   Since this is a web-based application this hardly makes for a
fast browsing experience.

One solution is to break it up into more manageable pieces.   If I can
specify the sort order then I can run concurrent queries and get things
settled easily.   Otherwise I'll have to fetch for every row returned
and that seems messy and I would like to avoid it.

Any ideas?

    Martin Foster
    martin@ethereal-realms.org