# Can you identify this book? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 30, 2018, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-identify-this-book/815157 "2018-05-30T23:18:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Alpha\_Twit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alpha_twit/32/265_2.png) [@Alpha\_Twit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alpha_Twit)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2018, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-identify-this-book/815157/1 "2018-05-30T23:18:20Z")
Three immortal aliens crash on a primitive Earth. Due to boredom, they nudge an ape up the evolutionary ladder and then spend the next several millennia dealing with the social/religious turmoil. This is all I know about the book. I have never read this book, have no idea who wrote it or when it came out. The only reason I know as much as I do is that several years ago, when I purchased a complete set of _Hitchhiker’s Guide_ books, The blurb above popped up as a **”Hey, you purchased that book. You might like this one.”** link. Can you identify this book? Is it worth reading? ---
**Author:** ![Quimby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/22d042/32.png) [@Quimby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quimby)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-identify-this-book/815157/2 "2018-05-31T00:10:41Z")
Is it [Waiting for the Galactic Bus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_the_Galactic_Bus)? Which I never read but the Science Fiction Book Club kept trying to sell me and sounds like what you described. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-identify-this-book/815157/3 "2018-05-31T00:14:17Z")
Yeah - sounds like “Galactic Bus” or one of its sequels ---
**Author:** ![Alpha\_Twit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alpha_twit/32/265_2.png) [@Alpha\_Twit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alpha_Twit)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-identify-this-book/815157/4 "2018-05-31T00:16:39Z")
Sure sounds like it, many thanks. I would have bet money that it involved three aliens and not two as in “Galactic Bus” but I could easily be wrong about that. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-identify-this-book/815157/5 "2018-05-31T00:17:01Z")
> [@Quimby](#): > > Is it [Waiting for the Galactic Bus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_the_Galactic_Bus)? Which I never read but the Science Fiction Book Club kept trying to sell me and sounds like what you described. It is _Waiting for the Galactic Bus_, by Parke Godwin. Pretty funny, not very scientific except in a sort of Star Trek-ish way. The sequel, _The Snake Oil Wars_, was also kinda fun. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-identify-this-book/815157/6 "2018-05-31T00:23:03Z")
It’s probably impossible to be sure with such a limited description, but I agree that Parke Godwin’s _Waiting for the Galactic Bus_ is a good candidate. IIRC there are only two aliens, and the book mostly skips over the millennia and deals mostly with a modern-day situation that plays out in a fairly short period of time, but it basically fits the description and – perhaps more importantly – is funny, dark, and weird in a way that makes it something that would plausibly be recommended to _Hitchhiker_ fans. I haven’t read the sequel _The Snake Oil Wars_, but it may be that it better fits the blurb _Alpha Twit_ remembers. _Waiting for the Galactic Bus_ was the first book I ever read by Parke Godwin, and was surprised to later discover that he was mostly known for writing fairly serious historic fantasy novels. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-identify-this-book/815157/7 "2018-05-31T01:18:44Z")
> [@Alpha\_Twit](#): > > Sure sounds like it, many thanks. I would have bet money that it involved three aliens and not two as in “Galactic Bus” but I could easily be wrong about that. In Galactic Bus, the TWO aliens, Barion and Coyul, are stranded as a prank while on a sort of interstellar senior class trip. Barion fiddles with a proto-human’s mind. Coyul does something more, pushing the guy’s development to the next “quantum level,” so to speak. Insert some jumbo-jumbo about consciousness being an indestructible form of energy, so that everyone’s “soul” hangs around after death, bugging Barion and Coyul about what it all meant, and assuming that they’re now in the Afterlife. And Barion is God and Coyul is the Devil. No more aliens show up until the late twentieth century, and when they do, Barion gets exiled to an asteroid in deep space, while Coyul is left behind on Earth to take over as God and try to get the human race’s emotional development up to speed with it’s intellectual development. In the second book, Coyul is busy being God, Abe Lincoln is representing him in a civil suit against an Evangelical (being represented by John Calvin) who threw a bomb at him while he was making a speech, and an old girlfriend of Coyul’s comes by for a visit. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-identify-this-book/815157/8 "2018-05-31T01:25:00Z")
btw, the books seem to have been published in the late 1980s. I read them in 1989, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-identify-this-book/815157/9 "2018-05-31T01:26:00Z")
It is **Moby-Dick or, The Whale** by Herman Melville. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-identify-this-book/815157/10 "2018-05-31T01:33:20Z")
I remember really liking those books, though the first was better. ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-identify-this-book/815157/11 "2018-05-31T14:22:34Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > It is **Moby-Dick or, The Whale** by Herman Melville. You need to read **Fluke., or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings** by Christopher Moore. You’re more right than you know… ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-identify-this-book/815157/12 "2018-05-31T14:32:14Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > is funny, dark, and weird in a way that makes it something that would plausibly be recommended to _Hitchhiker_ fans. That’s [not the only reason](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Gently%27s_Holistic_Detective_Agency) it might be recommended to _Hitchhiker_ fans. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2018, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-identify-this-book/815157/13 "2018-06-01T00:10:14Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That’s [not the only reason](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Gently%27s_Holistic_Detective_Agency) it might be recommended to _Hitchhiker_ fans. It’s been quite a few years since I read either _Waiting for the Galactic Bus_ or _Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency_, and I’m afraid I don’t get what you mean here. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2018, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-identify-this-book/815157/14 "2018-06-01T00:33:39Z")
The plot of Dirk Gently’s includes aliens accidentally causing human developments, or causing humans, or something. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2018, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-identify-this-book/815157/15 "2018-06-01T08:21:24Z")
More to the point, it involves an _ancient_ alien crash (so does\* Restaurant at the End of the Universe\*, come to think of it).