Now it is one of my truths, that I love an irreverent take on Christianity. I've always thought that it could use a dose of self-deprecation and maybe a little sense of humor.  Apparently, Parke Godwin felt the same; god bless him…

Barion and Coyul are out on a bender to dwarf all benders.  The graduating class is out on an interplanetary pub crawl and the brothers were invited even though the leader of the pack didn't particularly like them.  After a while, the group was finally partied out and mostly conscious when they ended up on a primitive planet with no sentient species.  Sorlij, the erstwhile leader of the party, decided it was time everyone went home but Barion and Coyul were still pretty zonked out.  In disgust, Sorlij decided to just leave them to teach them a lesson.  Trouble was, nobody could really remember how they got to such a far out galaxy or how to get home; so getting back to pick them up took a little more time…

Once Barion and Coyul woke up, they were only mildly inconvenienced that they'd have to wait until someone came to get them.  But boredom eventually set in and Barion conceived an unhealthy interest in the small primates.  Both brothers had been trained in genetic seeding but an unauthorized experiment might mean eons of imprisonment or their essence bled out into space and oblivion.  To Coyul's credit, he did try to dissuade Barion's impulses. As for Barion, he found out the hard way that his youthful exuberance made for some very unfortunate long-term effects. Faced with a poor primate suddenly discovering he had self-awareness, compassionate Coyul did the only thing he could think of to alleviate the poor thing's fear; he gave him laughter.

Some millennium later, Barion has discovered that no matter what he attempts, humanity has an unfortunate tendency to invent gods; and when they die they fully expect to experience their particular brand of religion.  This was really outside of the brothers' learning and experience.  No one had ever pursued a branch of humanity to this extent; there had been some few and conservative reports of post-existence energy but nothing to help the brothers figure out what to do with all of them. 

Barion found himself inundated with saints, martyrs and many of their ilk; so many that he finally created a repository for them all and named it Topside.  Although he ran the place, no one really understood who or what he was; except for one like soul, Yeshua.  Coyul, on the other hand, ended up with all those who rejected the idea of any kind of heaven or just didn't feel like they belonged.  Below Stairs was his venue; but it was awfully challenging to continue to find ways to punish people who wouldn't take no for an answer.  His roster was imminently more interesting than Topside's including malcontents, bureaucrats, reformers, bigots and chauvinists and the occasional fascist.

It's pretty much business as usual for them both until they started to hear some unfortunate voices coming from that new country Earthside: the United States.  Mostly, the brothers tried to keep out of the business of the living but the voices are getting way too loud and disturbing.  Barion zeroes in on one particular young couple whose inclinations indicate that a child of theirs would have the potential for great violence and destruction.  Charity is an undereducated young woman whose Christian values are at odds with her lust for her young man, Roy.  Roy, also very uneducated but full of grand ideas and an overdeveloped sense of self-importance, has two life goals:  get Charity into the sack (marrying her, if necessary) and becoming a rising star in the local paramilitary/racist group known as Paladins.  Both Barion and Coyul hear the same thing: these two could produce a child who would be a catalyst for disaster.

Despite the fact that they both know eventually someone will come for them and they will have to answer for their crimes, this is something they can do now that might help humanity.  So begins a campaign to bring both young people to self-realizations and crossroads where their decisions will either improve their lot or codify their beliefs.  The brothers are hoping for the former.

Most of the story is a hilarious setup as Charity and Roy are separated and both think they are dead.  Charity gets to experience things she only dreamed of and Roy's aspirations are met and exceeded.  The test is if they can make something more of themselves.

And, as the brothers predicted, Sorlij did finally come back.  And he was not only unamused but sorely shocked at the brothers' results.  After some deliberation, one brother was taken to stand trial, so to speak, and the other sentenced to remain and clean up the mess.  Although mankind was guilty of terrible impulses, there was much unrealized potential.  The brother had one directive: make them grow up. 

This isn't the funniest book I've ever read but it has some really spot-on observations of the human condition.  It will be tempting for the gentle reader to breeze through this short story but I urge you to slow down and really consider both the characters and their dialogue.  You'll get a lot more out of it, I promise.

Next month, the sequel: "The Snake Oil Wars".  ~~ Catherine Book

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