The cosmic wheels go round and round: a review of Waiting for the Galactic Bus

Waiting for the Galactic Bus

Author Parke Godwin

Cover artist Chris Hopkins

Series The Snake Oil Series

Genre Science fiction

Publisher Doubleday

Publication date 1988

Media type Print (hardcover)

Pages 244 pages

Preceded by A Truce With Time

Followed by The Snake Oil Wars

Yes, I’m writing a review of a book that was first published over thirty-five years ago. Let me explain.

There have always been books about the afterlife, often tinged with absurdity, as most concepts of the afterlife are. Going back to Dante, I suppose, and probably prior to him. Probably a lot didn’t survive the occasional bouts of theocracy that most societies are prone to, since churches take a dim view of works that turn sacred cows into Big Macs. Even when it’s not even their own particular breed of cow.

In recent years there has been a plethora of such works. Gaiman’s “The Sandman” is a more sober example. Gaiman and Pratchett’s “Good Omens” is a less sober example. More recently, “Hazbeen Hotel” took sobriety and sent it on a three week bender.

I read Waiting for the Galactic Bus when it first came out, and again a few years later, in 1992. It was a rare combination of strong intellect and raucous humor, a superior work. It came to my attention a couple of times in conversations over the past few weeks, and I decided it was worth a second re-read. Not many books deserve that. There are some I’ll read every ten or twenty years or so, and while the books remain exactly the same, both the world and I have moved on, and they make good benchmarks of that change. To Kill A Mockingbird. Catch-22. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Confederacy of Dunces.

Parke Godwin was a renouned and often reverbed author of history-based fantasy, dealing with such legendary figures as Robin Hood or King Arthur. While the works had intense flashes of wit, they were for the most part pretty sober-sided, an affliction shared by most works of fantasy of the time. “But then one day,” Godwin explained, “I started to giggle.” It was an era of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, and I’ve little doubt both influenced Godwin. He decided he ought to have a go at this “humor” thing.

Waiting for the Galactic Bus and its sequel, The Snake Oil Variations, were the result.

There are transcendent life forms in the universe, beings that can be anything from pure energy to slime mold as the whim suits them. They travel from galaxy to galaxy at will. Barion and Corul are two of these beings, brothers as far as the term can apply. They are also the god-like version of college sophomores: arrogant, conceited, headstrong, convinced that they have truth, justice and the cosmos on their side. A group of them, including those two, go on a trans-universe spring break frat run. Playing around in corporeal forms is popular in this group, as it allows for bodily pleasures, such as sex or getting drunk. Barion and Coyul specialize in these to massive excess.

As a result, they are passed out when the party moves on, and realize that not even knowing which galaxy they are in, let alone the direction of their home galaxy (there are, after all, an estimated eight trillion galaxies in the known universe!) they decide to wait and hope someone notices they’re missing and come back to collect them.

In the meantime Barion decides to monkey with the indigenous life. Literally monkey. He spots some primates, and despite the lifeform’s notorious emotional and intellectual erraticisms, decides to push cognition on them. Coyul, a musician by inclination, spots a flaw in his brother’s experiment and adds a vital component: a sense of self-deprecation.

The life forms flourish, and being mortal, die at their time. But something unexpected happens. The signature essence of their lives doesn’t just vanish, but hangs around in a post corporeal existence. In their millions, they form two vortices of post-existence reality, which the brothers come to call Topside and Below Stairs. This suits the now-semi-evolved primates, who are big into superstition and duality.

They each take loose charge of each of the afterlife destinations. Both provide the beings with their hearts’ desire. (On some of the desires manifest in his realm of Below Stairs, Coyul responds, “These people are sick. Well, all right.”)

These realms are a wild combination of Roger Rabbit’s Toontown, Gaiman’s Hell, and Phillip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld series. Unlimited space, unlimited budget, unlimited special effects. Your hearts’ desire. Megalomania a house specialty. In both realms. Ahmed has 72 virgins to boff for eternity. Of course, he’s still human, with human limitations. After six hours of non-stop sex, he’s ready to convert to Mormonism.

The brothers keep a close eye on Earth, of course. Between religious and political extremism, greed and the herd mentality, humans keep wanting to destroy themselves, and they have to step in from time to time to prevent that. They’ve gotten rather fond of the poor things, you see. Like pets, don’t you know? Part of the family, really.

They hear voices from what is now called rust-belt America that disturb them. Roy Stride is a vicious little wannabee Nazi, mind aswirl with gratified grievances and elimination of all those people he considers inferior. However, Roy is a moron. His girlfriend is Charity Stovell, and while a blinkered small-town fundamentalist whose hormones have convinced her she loves Ray, is significantly more intelligent. The offspring of such a grim pairing could be another Hitler. This must be avoided by all means, and the brothers, both bored and concerned, devise an amazing series of events to prevent such a union.

Parke Godwin absolutely nailed the inextricable links between privation caused by capitalism, religious fundamentalism, and vicious fascism and how, yes, it could happen here. It was pertinent 35 years ago, and now, in these times of the rise of fascism worldwide and in America, it’s far more pertinent now. Godwin writes of this: “‘Aryanism’…dogma for the diseased pseudophilosophy of Adolf Hitler, itself based on his severe paranoia…Paranoia. The common cold of neurosis. The paranoic, perceiving all external stimuli as threat, needs to see his enemies, not merely sense their external presence. Being imaginary, these threats must be fleshed out to visible targets, the more clearly defined the better. Thus the emotionally defeated German worker was given the Jew. His disadvantaged, disenfranchised American counterpart is offered not only the Jew but the Negro and Catholic—together with any group, way of life or system of belief not harmonious with his own, stamped with the label enemy in large red letters.”

Can anyone look at the MAGA movement, and the endless ridiculous moral panics of the far right in their endless search for enemies and threats to fear, and not see exactly what Godwin envisioned?

Godwin wrote a perfect mix of hilarity and horror. While deeply disturbing, Galactic Bus is also comedic genius. The plot thunders from one absurdity to the next, with everyone, including our resident deities, getting what’s coming.

This book is an underappreciated jewel, and should be read by all thoughtful persons, or anyone who might want to learn to think. Coyul can help you with that, you know.