THE LIVELY LIVES OF CRISPIN MOBEY

Mildly entertaining misadventures of a would-be missionary, from the pseudonymous Quyth: Mobey undertakes to convert erring souls all over the globe, as well as in heaven and hell. Unsinkable dolt Mobey's first mission for the Southern Primitive Protestant Church (SoPrim) takes him to Australia, where the Anula tribe stand in dire need of Christian instruction (among other disasters, Mobey feeds the tribe on glass beads, starts a war, and precipitates a monsoon). In backward Oblivia, Mobey persuades the Oblivians to give up their political civil war--in favor of a religious civil war. Next, Mobey discovers his roots in England and acquires a bottom-pinching invisible fairy godfather. In Mexico, he fearlessly tackles a conspiracy of vampire senior citizens. During a trip to hell, he's acclaimed by the devil for inventing a new torture: preaching to the damned. In Cajun country, he falls afoul of the local Obeah woman. It's Mobey to the rescue in Japan, where a sinister cult of Plug Uglies threatens good, solid SoPrim morality. And, finally, Mobey reaches heaven (it's near the Orion nebula) and receives instructions from Dr. Livingstone on how to save humanity. Broadly satirical, often jaundiced--Quyth evidently vented some private spleen in writing it--and intermittently amusing; the sort of thing a tree SoPrim believer would gladly find offensive.