Waiting for the Galactic Bus, by Parke Godwin (pub. 1988)
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Caution: spoilers.

At some point after joining the Science Fiction Book Club, I saw this book, and its sequel (The Snake Oil Wars), in the club's catalog. They were two of the numerous books I circled, back then, as things I'd like to get someday. However, I never did end up getting them from the club. A good number of years later, I happened to see used copies of both books on sale at a book store, and picked them up (along with a few other used books). So I finally got around to reading the first one in 2012. I greatly look forward to reading the sequel, but I suppose I should take a break from this story, and read something else, first. Anyway, the writing style put me somewhat in mind of that of Douglas Adams, though Godwin definitely has his own unique style.

So. It begins with a group of aliens, who were traveling around the Universe as a sort of mobile party, celebrating the end of the school season. (They were, I guess, at an academic level equivalent to college, though actually they were several million years old.) The aliens were of a mutable nature; they could alter their forms between matter and energy, and could take on any physical form they wished. I'm not sure exactly how many were in the group, but only four of them were of any importance. The two main ones, for the purposes of the story, are Barion and his younger brother, Coyul. Also in the group were Sorlij and his girlfriend, Maj. They didn't particularly care for Barion or Coyul, and for reasons which don't need exploring, they and the rest of the group decided to leave the brothers behind on the most recent planet on which they'd been partying. Of course, they intended to come back for them eventually.

The planet in question was quite primitive, having no intelligent life, though it would later come to be called Earth. The aliens' fields of study were basically about seeding life on new worlds, though the specifics varied from student to student, I guess. And Coyul himself was more interested in creating music than in science, while Barion dabbled in poetry. But anyway, Barion decided to pass the time by tinkering with the minds of the indigenous apes, advancing them to "Cultural Threshold," which went against the rules of their people, at least for creatures whose brains were below a certain cranial capacity; these apes' brains were around "900 cc," whereas the minimum limit was 1050 cc. Coyul was against Barion's experimentation, but before long he got involved, as well.

The story skips ahead like five million years, I believe, to the late 1980s. The apes had evolved into human beings, because of Barion and Coyul's interference. And the brothers had been surprised to learn that after death, a person's residual energy of personality carried on (as what we might call a "soul"), and at some point these souls began collecting in two different areas, which came to be called Topside (aka "Heaven") and Below Stairs ("Hell"). Humans developed various religions throughout history, none of which were at all accurate; nevertheless, Barion basically assumed the role of God, and Coyul of the Devil- or simply "the Prince," as he preferred. Of course, neither of them was particularly good or evil, they were both just people. (Albeit comparatively ancient people with powers humans might see as godlike.) Very few souls knew the truth about the aliens and their part in the origins of the human race, and most didn't seem to know Barion was God. Nor did the aliens have any interest in providing eternal reward or punishment; souls made of Topside and Below Stairs whatever they expected. Mostly this was just more of what they'd known in life. I think souls had powers much like that of Barion and Coyul, but generally they didn't seem to use them.

But the basic plot of the book involves three people from an economically depressed Midwestern town called Plattsville, all in their early 20s, I believe. The main one of these was a woman named Charity Stovall, who had an intelligent mind, though she herself didn't realize that. She was a Christian Fundamentalist, and her boyfriend, Roy Stride, was as well. However, with him it was just a way of feeling powerful, I guess... he was part of a militant group called the White Paladins, who I guess were something like the Ku Klux Klan. Charity and Roy were also friends with a trumpet player named Woody Barnes, who was in love with Charity, though he never would have done anything about it. Barion stumbled across these three, and realized that if Charity and Roy married, and had children, it was almost a certainty that at least one of those children would grow up to be as intelligent as Charity and as prejudiced as Roy, and could become perhaps more dangerous than even Hitler had been. And so, Barion and Coyul come up with a plan to keep them apart.

On the first night we meet them, Charity and Roy go to a motel to have sex for the first time, something they wouldn't do unless they knew they were going to eventually marry. Even so, Charity was conflicted about this. And after the act, they are confronted by the Devil, who tells them they both had heart attacks and died. And because of the sin they'd committed, they were both going to Hell. After that they were separated, each having their own experiences. Ultimately, they both get everything they ever wanted in life... and Charity comes to realize that her own desires weren't quite what she thought, and that Roy's desires were abhorrent to her. Meanwhile, Woody had gone Topside, where he was reunited with his old friend and fellow jazz musician, Milt Kahane, who had died when the two of them served together in the Air Force, and fought in Beirut. Woody learns all about the plan Barion and Coyul had cooked up for Charity and Roy, and he'd play a part in it, eventually. Of course, the three of them weren't really dead, but Charity and Roy wouldn't learn that until near the end of the book.

I don't want to reveal any more of the plot, except to say that the need to complete their plan for Charity and Roy becomes urgent when Sorlij and Maj finally do show up looking for Barion and Coyul. But I think the writing is delicious (I wish I could write this way, but I guess everyone needs their own style), and the book is terribly amusing. It would, of course, be seen as blasphemous by many people of any religion on Earth, especially Christianity. And people could easily see it as personally insulting to them, and to the human race in general, for our need to believe in concepts that Barion and his people consider childish. Personally, I think it's best to just accept it as science fiction, rather than taking it as an indictment of the religious mentality in general. (I mean, whether or not you believe in the teachings of Christianity or any other faith, you probably won't believe in the underlying premise of the book, anyway. So why not just suspend disbelief and enjoy the story?) Anyway, I love the characterizations, including that of some of the secondary characters. (Yeshua, aka Jesus, has a minor role, as does St. Augustine. Of greater importance is a cab driver named Jake, aka Judas Iscariot. And a couple of historical actors, Edmund Kean and John Wilkes Booth- though you'll be forgiven if you remember the latter for something other than his acting career.) And there are any number of other minor characters, though some of them are actually played by more important characters, for the benefit of Charity and Roy. And... I guess that's all I can think to say. It's just a hell of a clever and entertaining book.