The Snake Oil Wars, by Parke Godwin (pub. 1989)
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This is the sequel to Waiting for the Galactic Bus. The full title (which can only be found on the book's title page, nowhere else in the book or on the cover) is "The Snake Oil Wars: or Scheherazade Ginsberg Strikes Again". (Though there is a picture of Ms. Ginsberg on the dust jacket.) And the internet informs me that it has also been published under the title "The Snake Oil Variations". It came out in 1989 (just a year after the first book), but I didn't read it until 2016 (four years after I read the first book). It's reasonably amusing, and there are some vaguely philosophical ideas that I kind of liked. But while I enjoyed the book, I'm afraid I didn't like it nearly as much as the original.

The first book ended with Barion returning home with his people, to accept punishment for what he and Coyul had done on Earth. Meanwhile, Coyul was left behind to "clean up the mess" they'd made. The sequel picks up not long after that. I had rather expected that Coyul's work would mostly entail explaining the truth to the people of Earth who were still alive, but in fact the living play no part in the book at all. He had left Below Stairs to take over Barion's position in Topside, and explain things to the souls who resided there. Naturally, they (at least the Fundamentalists) didn't want to accept the Devil as their new God, let alone accept the reality of human evolution and the fact that Barion and Coyul were actually aliens, not gods at all. And one such soul, Lance Candor, throws a bomb into Coyul's office. (It's kind of strange how in post-life, souls can create pretty much anything they can think of, and it works just as it would on Earth. But actually, I still don't really understand whether Topside and Below Stairs are physical in nature, or... just seem that way.) Anyway, the bomb blows Coyul (and guests) apart, but of course that's not a big deal, because they can put themselves back together. Well... Coyul has some help, when his old paramour, Purji (one of his own kind), comes to Topside looking for him. They hadn't seen each other in millions of years, so of course it was nice to be back together.

Lance will have to stand trial for what he did. But before that gets underway, he's visited in jail by a woman named Scheherazade 'Sherry' Ginsberg, who I guess had been some kind of hippie revolutionary, in life. And she latches onto Lance as a chance to be part of a revolution, in post-life. Meanwhile, Lance's wife, Letti, never comes to visit him (though she does use his new notoriety to make herself famous). And we learn that Lance had never really been particularly happy with their marriage, largely because Letti had no interest in sex. Well, he eventually has an affair with Sherry, though it takes awhile for him to overcome his morals.

The trial, once it gets started, is covered by a TV reporter from Topside named Cathy Cataton, and one from Below Stairs named Nancy Noncommit, the two of whom immediately develop a rivalry. Lance is defended by a lawyer named Peter Helm, and Coyul is represented by Joshua Speed. (Those are both aliases, and Coyul is eager to discover who they each really were in life. Of course, Helm also wants to learn who Speed was, and vice versa.) The presiding judge is Marcus Aurelius. But the trial isn't really about Lance's guilt or innocence, so much as it is about whether Coyul's claims about the true identities of himself and Barion, and about the very nature of humanity and religion, can be believed. Lance becomes little more than a pawn in the larger movement to discredit Coyul, whom the Fundamentalists persist in believing is the actual Devil. Aside from Coyul and Lance themselves, the witnesses at the trial include Purji (whom many refuse to believe is an alien, just as they refuse to believe about Coyul and Barion) and Yeshua (whom many refuse to believe was the real Jesus). Many, including Helm, believe Topside is really some intermediate stage between life and the real Heaven. (Sort of like Purgatory, but I don't recall that name ever being invoked.)

Well, in the course of the trial, the various witnesses and lawyers say some interesting things (the aforementioned "vaguely philosophic ideas") that I liked. There's some actual depth, here, not just the humor that is the book's mainstay. I don't want to reveal the outcome of the trial, but I thought it was pretty much the only outcome there really could have been. And... I don't think Helm or Speed's true identities were ever revealed. However, I had a notion about Speed early on, and as the book progressed, I felt more and more sure I was right. There were probably similar clues about Helm, but I'm afraid I don't know enough history to make a guess as to his identity. Of course, it's not really important to know who either of them were in life. Meanwhile... I also wanted to mention that early on, Sherry said something to Lance that he clearly didn't understand, so... after the trial, he finally found out what she meant, and he was shocked by it, though I'd been expecting it all along. (If I had read the book when it came out, my assumption would have been that Sherry was bisexual, but having read it when I did, I realized her sexuality was actually fluid.) Which is fine, except that it left Lance heartbroken. However, it led to... well, Purji making some physical and psychological changes in Sherry, for Lance's benefit (and ostensibly for Sherry's), which nearly ruined the whole book for me. It just seemed terribly sexist and binarist (or um, whatever the appropriate "ism" would be for discrimination against fluid sexuality). But... I managed to get past that distasteful bit, and enjoy the remainder of the story, the details of which I won't spoil. So, all in all, it was a decent book, even if I was disappointed not to find out what's going on on Earth, now. And, you know, the novelty of the first book had sort of worn off, for me, I guess. I'm still glad to have finally read it.