Waiting for the Galactic Bus

by Parke Godwin

Other authorsChris Hopkins (Cover artist), Jamie S. Warren (Cover designer)

Hardcover, 1988

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Publication

Book Club Edition, Foundation, Doubleday

Description

Two brothers from a civilization vastly superior to our own must act fast to prevent a couple named Charity and Roy from marrying. If Charity marries Roy, they will give birth to a child who could spell doom for the human race.

User reviews

LibraryThing member qwiksilver

Two brothers get left behind during a romp through the universe. Bored they turn a rather unpromising ape into something that ends up "religious and lethal." Godwin's famous take on facism and how it breeds from percieved hopelessnes and racism. His two brothers end up somehow mistaken as God and

Satan, they set up camp in two distinct spheres, give post life people what they want but still, somehow, that's not enough. Godwin likes to name drop like crazy in this book. He also likes to leave you trying to figure out who a certain character is without mentioning his name (he does this in the sequel too): Who is the answering machine? This is a fun romp of a read that will leave you thinking deeper thoughts by the end.

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LibraryThing member TheDivineOomba

This is an interesting take on the Dante's Inferno story from way back when - here we get two beings on a higher plain (not God's, but Godlike, without the all-knowing) On a college road trip through the outer regions of the universe, they get left behind on an insignificant little planet (not

exactly an accident, since the two brothers are rather annoying). To keep things interesting, they start monkeying around (ha ha, get it!) with the local primate population, accidentally creating humanity.

Now, jump a few millennium. We find humanity in its present 1988 splendor and a couple of nobody kids who if they get together, they have a high potential of creating the next Hitler. So, the two higher order beings (not Gods, just Godlike without the all-knowing) decide they have to do something about. Hence, the rewrite of Dante's inferno, only this time, it was all a stage to prevent two people from hooking up.

Its a very interesting book - it can be a bit irreverent at times, but always insightful. Its a great bit of writing. At times, it feels a bit dated, but it was written in 1988 - if I remember, right before the age of computers and cell phones.

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LibraryThing member DinadansFriend

Two brothers, who have powers, but not much foresight, meddle an ape into becoming the Human Race we know and love today. Funny enough to mute the anger I sometimes feel toward my contemporaries.

LibraryThing member Cheryl_in_CC_NV

Ok, the elliptical & convoluted sentence structure, I could put up with - after all, I'm guilty of creating amateur sailors' knots in my own writing. The lack of referents for the pronouns is somewhat more troubling (which is the 'he' this time?). But I almost put it down the third time I saw bad

editing to the point of a missing word. When a sentence is supposed to have the word 'was' in it, make sure it really is there, please.

Still, I persisted. Until I realized that there was going to be a lot of yucky stuff about violent bigots and not-actually-smarter aliens messing around with us and religious & spiritual parables. No, no way, not fun, not a romp, not provocative, and most definitely not for me.

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LibraryThing member jsabrina

An extremely funny and moving book about what happens when the beings we call "God" and "The Devil" collaborate to prevent the conception of a possible Hitler. Young, conservative Charity and Roy are snatched from a seedy hotel room and taken on separate journeys through the afterlife, with the

cooperation of theatrical and historical figures recruited to play supporting roles. Meanwhile, "Judgement Day" is coming for the two puppet masters as their long-lost past catches up to them.

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