Five middle-aged characters, who had died prematurely, find themselves in a Cosmic Terminal: a Minnesota couple; a professional comedian, also American; a Peruvian woman painter; and a handsome n'er-do-well English con man and sexual athlete of the turn of the 19th century. This uncontemporaneous fifth character demonstrates, to at least one of the two presiding hosts or functionaries, the principle of imperfection that affects the universe as well as Earth. In the course of their sojourn, the five principals-under the guidance and sometimes misguidance of the two hosts, with brief intermittent appearances of other questers-have questions about their personal lives and life in general answered; they comically generate and eventually diffuse hostilities among themselves, sort themselves out finally into new relationships, and prepare to move on. All of them-including the functionary hosts-change in some revelatory way, the over-all effect being, at one and the same time, rambunctious and thought-provoking. As a guiding character says at the end, "the question isn't whether there's life after death, but life before death." All those in the world who happen to live a somewhat fulfilled life do not bother to ask about life after death; they don't need to. Only the majority of us, without a more or less happy or fulfilled life, ask that question-because we yearn for what we haven't had. It's a psychological not a religious matter, at core... but read on or, rather, before. In a phrase, this is a serious science fiction comedy.
