Author Topic: EP123: Niels Bohr and the Sleeping Dane  (Read 47637 times)

Swamp

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 2230
    • Journey Into... podcast
Reply #50 on: September 20, 2007, 10:41:19 PM
I really enjoyed this story.  I loved the hard science; I loved the characterization;  I loved the relationships; I loved the historical setting; I loved the respectful treatment of religion; and I loved the giant statue splitting heads.  That's a lot to pack into one story, but the author did it well.

Facehuggers don't have heads!

Come with me and Journey Into... another fun podcast


Planish

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 772
  • Fun will now commence.
    • northernelectric.ca
Reply #51 on: September 21, 2007, 06:51:55 AM
Having been a suscriber since episode 88 or thereabouts, I'd say this story was my favourite so far. Very thoughtfully written.
If I was a monkey, I'd give it four thumbs up.

The golemized (?) statue was certainly not a deus ex machina, since it had been hinted at all through the story in one form or another. I was expecting more of a metaphorical golem though, something to do with one of the resistance group members (which group, in real life, borrowed the name of Holger Danske - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holger_Danske_%28Resistance_group%29 ). But then, it would merely be a work of historical fiction (or as Steve put it, "secret history" - I like that one).

I'm surprised that nobody has yet brought up the notion that Bohr along with many Jewish (and non-Jewish, of course) ex-pats, was ultimately going to contribute the construction of the biggest golem of all, the atomic bomb. Like the Golem of Prague, the atomic bomb is a servant that is proving very hard to deactivate once the original task was accomplished. As far as it being a "sin" to create one goes, wasn't it Robert Oppenheimer who said "Now we are all bastards" after the Trinity test?

I am so glad it didn't end with Bohr wielding some weapon involving a blinding light, as in the son's dream.

I liked the way a number of threads wove themselves in and out of the story: the golem(s), Holger Danske as a symbol for the resistance by the Danes, the mysticism/physics comparisons, and so on.

I was worried that the SS Captain on the train was going to be a bit of a cartoon villain, because it's impossible not to think of the stereotypical Nazi officer, yet it was necessary to have one here. Fortunately his part was quite short, and he did have that menacing air of a rattlesnake in your sleeping bag. Nobody (except the father, of course) wanted to speak or move, hoping it would just slither away. I like that kind of villain.

About the train: Is it just me not following the story closely enough, or did it not magically turned into a bus for a while, when they took the young family off at one of the stops?

It (the story) also recalled one of my favourite new (to me) words: Liminality - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminality
Quote
Liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning "a threshold") is the quality of the second stage of a ritual in the theories of Arnold van Gennep, Victor Turner, and others. In these theories, a ritual, especially a rite of passage, involves some change to the participants, especially their social status.

The liminal state is characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy. One's sense of identity dissolves to some extent, bringing about disorientation. Liminality is a period of transition where normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed - a situation which can lead to new perspectives.

People, places, or things may not complete a transition, or a transition between two states may not be fully possible. Those who remain in a state between two other states may become permanently liminal.
[snip]
During the liminal stage, normally accepted differences between the participants, such as social class, are often de-emphasized or ignored. A social structure of communitas forms: one based on common humanity and equality rather than recognized hierarchy.
[snip]
Liminality in states of consciousness
Another example of liminality can occur when someone wakes from dream sleep and in a hypnagogic state of mind is unable to distinguish if a vaguely recalled dream actually occurred.
[snip]
Liminality in places
These can range from borders, to no man's lands and disputed territories, to crossroads to perhaps airports or hotels, which people pass through but do not live in. In mythology and religion or esoteric lore this can include such realms as Purgatory or Da'at which as well as signifying liminality some theologians have denied actually existing, making them, in some cases, doubly liminal. "Between-ness" defines these spaces.
[snip]
The story certainly had many of those elements - the "communitas", losing his family and leaving his home to go to the "higher plane" of Cambridge University, the dream that he tries to nurture as he is waking up, the catacombs being a sort of purgatory, crossing borders and passing through a neutral country, the threshold between land to sea, the threshold between the mystical and empirical knowledge, it's all there, lots of that Hero's Journey stuff.

There is also the separate article on the Liminal being - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liminal_being
Quote
In speculative fiction and, loosely applied, in mythology, a liminal being is a fantasy character that combines two distinct states of simultaneous existence within one physical body. This unique perspective may provide the liminal being with wisdom and the ability to instruct, making them suitable mentors, whilst also making them dangerous and uncanny.
Some of the examples in mythology and popular culture that they give are the Green Man (both alive and dead), cyborgs, and ghosts. Except for the fact that the golem isn't much for talking, I'm inclined to include it too.
Now that I think of it, Neils Bohr himself was born of one Jewish and one Lutheran parent, and was a mentor figure, making him a kind of liminal being.

I don't know if Sullivan purposely had "liminality" in mind when he wrote the story, but I think that the fact that it had those elements helped to make it a great story.

---
On the silly notion of science and empirically derived knowledge conflicting with religious beliefs, see my sig line, which currently is this quote from a noted astrophysicist:
Quote
"It is a primitive form of thought that things exist or do not exist." - Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington

I feed The Pod.
("planish" rhymes with "vanish")


Russell Nash

  • Guest
Reply #52 on: September 21, 2007, 07:16:34 AM
About the train: Is it just me not following the story closely enough, or did it not magically turned into a bus for a while, when they took the young family off at one of the stops?

IIRC the resistance had arranged for the train to stop about a mile before the train station.  All of the people in the group got off and walked to a bus stop, where they meant the person, who took them to the castle.



Planish

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 772
  • Fun will now commence.
    • northernelectric.ca
Reply #53 on: September 21, 2007, 12:54:50 PM
About the train: Is it just me not following the story closely enough, or did it not magically turned into a bus for a while, when they took the young family off at one of the stops?

IIRC the resistance had arranged for the train to stop about a mile before the train station.  All of the people in the group got off and walked to a bus stop, where they meant the person, who took them to the castle.
Later, listening more closely.
03:11 - "They stopped our train at [?]land..."
05:21 - "One of the most vivid memories of my life is how the air on the bus changed at that moment."
[blah-blah-blah]
05:51 - "The young man stood and he and his wife were led off the bus."
then
24:27 - "Hans had made arrangements with the engineer, who stopped the train a kilometer shy of Elsinore Station. Seventeen Jews, including the Bohrs, disembarked at this unscheduled stop. Hans and his children led us to the nearby bus stand."

Just a bit odd, that's all.

All I could think of was Poul Anderson, and the night I met with him and heard him discussing battle tactics in Pennsylvania as Sir Bela of Eastmarch.  There are times where we are not who we are but close to who we would like to be.  Good story telling brings us close to those moments. 
That sounds like the intro to a "No s*** really, there I was..." Pennsic tale. (This is not the place for it, but I'd like to hear it sometime.)

I feed The Pod.
("planish" rhymes with "vanish")


TimWhite

  • Guest
Reply #54 on: September 21, 2007, 01:47:27 PM
Although, as many pointed out, the characters were somewhat stereotypical, I felt that it was a good allegory about two kinds of power, the power over people, and the power over everything else.

Both have good sides (the Rabbi and the Atom bomb), and bad sides (the Nazis and the Atom bomb).

In the end, even though one seems a lot more far reaching, it's the power over people that touches us in ways that are harder to explain, and harder to forget.

A good story, although there should be a 'tear jerker' warning on these stories, it's dangerous to drive when crying.

Tim



Loz

  • Lochage
  • *****
  • Posts: 370
    • Blah Flowers
Reply #55 on: September 22, 2007, 06:26:42 PM
Agreed, this is the second story in recent months that brought me to the edge of crying in public spaces, darn it Eley, I've got a reputation as an unfeeling SOB to maintain here!

This is an example of a story where, to a large degree, you can foresee where all the beats are going to come yet Mr Sullivan writes it so well I minded it a hell of a lot less than many stories that try to keep you guessing.

For those that were arguing about 'why didn't Rabbis create a golem army', the narrator's father still died, so presumably a golem army would not automatically equal a success in the war and yeah, maybe the knowledge was not widespread. The Rabbi was trying to escape to another country without damning his soul if he could, after all.

All in all I thought this was a great story. Not one to listen to in public though.



DDog

  • Matross
  • ****
  • Posts: 187
    • Twitter
Reply #56 on: September 23, 2007, 03:25:09 PM
I enjoyed this one.

I'm going to have to disagree with everyone who said the statue coming to life was jarring or unnecessary. The groundwork was laid for it, so I can't really say it was jarring, and I think the story would have been just as good and powerful without it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was...er...unnecessary.

I'm not always satisfied with stories that explain away mystical statements, such as Holger Danske awaking when Denmark is threatened being explained away by the Rabbi, so I liked that Holger Danske the statue actually awoke too instead of just being a metaphor. It was a nice metaphor, but the statue wreaking vengeance made it better.

I also had the impression that the Rabbi wasn't expressly creating Holger Danske as a golem, but instead asking the Sleeping Dane to defend his people. When David questions the statue, Hans only says "Oh, Holger Danske sleeps here," as if that were all that needed to be said, instead of launching into an explanation of "That's a statue of so-and-so and legend has it that blah blah" to edify the Germans. The Rabbi assures Bohr that "Holger Danske is awake," as if to say 'You are simply not looking at it the right way.' It gave me the idea that when the statue did get up and commence slaying Nazis, he was doing so in response to a request, rather than the Rabbi filling an empty statue with his will--I'm unfamiliar with golem-creating tradition (Terry Pratchett doesn't count I'm afraid), but I thought that was the general idea in creating one. That Holger Danske kneels to the Rabbi and carries his body off into the dark reinforced it.

So I don't believe it was gratuitous golem-Nazi carnage, but instead a rather profound confirmation of Danish nobility and strength, a natural conclusion based on the preceding story, and another example of the integration of mundane/extraordinary outlined by David on the train.

Ask a Tranny Podcast
"Watching someone bootstrap themselves into sentience is the most science fiction thing you can do." -wintermute


lowky

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 2717
  • from http://lovecraftismissing.com/?page_id=3142
Reply #57 on: September 24, 2007, 02:01:55 PM
late to the party, for some reason i rarely listen to podcasts while sitting at my computer, and being unemployed I am not going many places that would have me listening to my ipod.  Probably cause I am reading blogs and message boards, and two "stories" at once is too hard to concentrate.  Anyways I really liked this story.  I will say the gollum was predictable from the first moment that the rabbi referred to it already being alive.  Especially once he was praying in front of it.  You could see he was going to sacrifice himself "for the greater good".  Still very enjoyable and I liked the comparison between Kabballah and The atom/Bohrian physics.  I don't know what genre I would place the story in.  There was science, religion, magic, WWII history.  I think if this were a novel it would just wind up on the general fiction shelf.  Still a very enjoyable read and I am glad it showed up on Escape Pod.  Not to mention that as a fellow Detroiter, I have to give it up for Sully Dog.


Gary

  • Peltast
  • ***
  • Posts: 92
Reply #58 on: September 24, 2007, 06:42:00 PM
I'm going to take the extremely controversial stance (for an on-line forum) of saying that there simply ISN'T some great battle going on between Christians (in the U.S.) and science.

Oh, there are unquestionably, venomous arguments between extremist representatives of Christians and their counterparts but in my experience, these groups simply do not represent the average majority of the public.

As in most of the great social debates of our time ... it's not the average Joe who takes to the streets and the airwaves, its a very impassioned minority.
The average Joe is just too busy with their daily life to get involved in an shouting match that they see as ultimately pointless.

I place myself in that "moderate majority" and it has taken me almost two weeks to finally decide to even post on the topic. As I said, I don't think there is any large scale problem here.

For the record, I am a Christian and I have had a lifelong passion for science (and science fiction). My wife is a Christian and an actual Rocket Scientist! My parents are both Christians and my father is an Aeronautical Engineer. A great many of our friends who are Christians also work in science fields.

Since I'm speaking out against stereo types, I guess I also should point out that I have friends who are agnostic, atheist, follow religions or have Christian beliefs different then my own, are of different ethnicities, are artists, doctors, programmers,  members of the entertainment industry, and even (gasp) podcasters. We all get along and enjoy each other's company.

Except for the podcaster thing, this makes me exceptionally average in my community.

Can science and religion coexist? Absolutely! They do every minute of every day.
Do some choose to use either one as tool to oppress others or use the whole subject to try and divide us as a group? Constantly.
They can only do this as long as we continue to allow the fringe to draw us into their argument of trying to paint the world as a black or white, "either this or that" place .


Now, in a completely un-controversial statement I would like to add that I really enjoyed this story.   :)
Thanks Jonathon.



Thaurismunths

  • High Priest of TCoRN
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1421
  • Praise N-sh, for it is right and good!
Reply #59 on: September 25, 2007, 02:14:10 AM
Wow.
Sully Dog, you wrote an amazing story!

I'm a Jew aficionado (several orthodox friends, and a general interest in the mythology). I loved how you wrote the rabbi's use of his "power" in such an understated and rational way, even slipping in the foreshadowing of the golem in such an innocuous way that I didn't see it coming. I thought the "fantasy" part came from the father's mysticism. You did a wonderful job of weaving this story around some already curious and intriguing history.
To be fair, I have a soft spot for golem stories. I think they're a poorly understood and under used creature. Shwankie and I were driving when we were listening to this one, so I'm blaming that on why I didn't see the ending sooner, even so I was literally agape when the statue walked.

Thanks for the story!

How do you fight a bully that can un-make history?


jonesy

  • Extern
  • *
  • Posts: 3
  • Making the most of life.
Reply #60 on: September 26, 2007, 05:57:16 AM
I didn't make it to the animated statue. Maybe I'd have liked it if I had, but all I could think after the jedi mind-trick the rabbi pulled was: "These are NOT the droids you're looking for." Didn't take long after for me to just turn it off.

Steve's commentary on science v religion also seemed to put me off. Perhaps its just a touchy subject for me, but I found myself also ruminating over it rather than enjoying (or not enjoying) the story. Might I suggest that commentary that might be of a slightly (highly?) contentious nature either come with a fast-forward warning or be relegated to the end after the story.

I'm just sayin'...

-----------------------------------------------
the lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.
- Chaucer


Czhorat

  • Peltast
  • ***
  • Posts: 135
Reply #61 on: September 26, 2007, 10:02:43 AM
Sorry you bailed, Jonesy. I think you missed a great story. At first, I wasn't sure that the rabbi's "mind tricks" were the result of real mysticism as opposed to the idea that an SS officer isn't expecting to be talked back to. I remember the story of one of my wife's familly members who was caught without papers in a similar situation and actually yelled at the office who would have arrested her; she got away and lived to tell the tale.

The animated statue might not have been neccessary, but for me it served a purpose. I saw the statue animated by the rabbi to defend the escaping Jews as symbolic of the native Danish people and culture united with immigrants and visitors to fight the occupation. If the statue just stood there we'd still have the story but lose part of the allegory.

The Word of Nash is the word of Nash and it is Nash's word.


jonesy

  • Extern
  • *
  • Posts: 3
  • Making the most of life.
Reply #62 on: September 28, 2007, 04:13:11 AM
I could accept the officer being taken aback at being stood up to. There are plenty of examples of bullies backing off after someone shows some cajones (fictional and non). I can't be sure, perhaps it was the way it was written, perhaps it was Steve's reading, but my impression was mystic. It could also be that I was in the mind set to see a mystic explanation  given that I was prepped to experience Sci-Fi.


-----------------------------------------------
the lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.
- Chaucer


Czhorat

  • Peltast
  • ***
  • Posts: 135
Reply #63 on: September 28, 2007, 10:35:06 AM
Don't get me wrong - on reading the entire story it seems clear that his dealing with the SS officer was mystic. My comment was just that it was ambiguous enough to be read either way before we learn more. I liked this because it let me get to know the rabbi as a character rather than immediately mold him into some kind of stereotypical "magical jew".

The Word of Nash is the word of Nash and it is Nash's word.


Listener

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 3187
  • I place things in locations which later elude me.
    • Various and Sundry Items of Interest
Reply #64 on: September 28, 2007, 01:28:57 PM
I could accept the officer being taken aback at being stood up to. There are plenty of examples of bullies backing off after someone shows some cajones (fictional and non). I can't be sure, perhaps it was the way it was written, perhaps it was Steve's reading, but my impression was mystic. It could also be that I was in the mind set to see a mystic explanation  given that I was prepped to experience Sci-Fi.



It was mystical.  I inferred that from the text, from David saying the last time his father tried this, it didn't work.

Am I wrong?  It's been a couple of weeks but I don't THINK I'm wrong.

"Farts are a hug you can smell." -Wil Wheaton

Blog || Quote Blog ||  Written and Audio Work || Twitter: @listener42


Thaurismunths

  • High Priest of TCoRN
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 1421
  • Praise N-sh, for it is right and good!
Reply #65 on: September 28, 2007, 02:15:27 PM
I could accept the officer being taken aback at being stood up to. There are plenty of examples of bullies backing off after someone shows some cajones (fictional and non). I can't be sure, perhaps it was the way it was written, perhaps it was Steve's reading, but my impression was mystic. It could also be that I was in the mind set to see a mystic explanation  given that I was prepped to experience Sci-Fi.



It was mystical.  I inferred that from the text, from David saying the last time his father tried this, it didn't work.

Am I wrong?  It's been a couple of weeks but I don't THINK I'm wrong.

You're right that it didn't work the night his mother was killed, but it was mystical.
David's father said later in the story that he can only manipulate people who have no will of their own. Three of the four Brown Shirts were affected by his father's powers because they were only acting on orders, the didn't really have a will of their own. The fourth, however, had too much hate in him, too much of his own will to hurt others, to be swayed by the Rabbi's power.
Essentially, the fourth thug made his saving throw Vs. Jew Magic. ;)

How do you fight a bully that can un-make history?


ajames

  • Lochage
  • *****
  • Posts: 358
Reply #66 on: September 28, 2007, 10:13:58 PM
It is interesting to me how authors deal with the more fantastical elements of their stories.  For the most part, I think the stories that set out the parameters of their reality early on are the most successful.  'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.'  With that beginning, it is no surprise to later encounter a wizard, dwarves, ogres, elves, goblins, or a dragon.

This story approaches things differently - you don't get the full parameters of its reality [A Rabbi can animate a statue and this statue can kill nazis] until the end.  You get a well-laid path leading you up to this reality.  But to me it was still a bit jarring, and that is because up until the very end, there was always a rationale explanation available alongside the mystical one.  Magical mind manipulation, or just bold and lucky psychology?  It's all in the eye of the beholder.  All through the story, this duality exists right up until the end, when there is no rationale, alternate explanation for how the inanimate became animate.

That is the only part of the story that didn't completely work for me.  It didn't turn me off entirely, and I can even see its merits.  After all, the explanation for why creating a golem would be rare is right there in the story, and the reader is given a privileged view into a secret world; the relative realism of the story before this animation serves to contrast the awesome magic of the moment.  It didn't work that way for me, but that is probably my hang-up.

Great story.



Czhorat

  • Peltast
  • ***
  • Posts: 135
Reply #67 on: September 29, 2007, 11:27:25 AM
Quote
For the most part, I think the stories that set out the parameters of their reality early on are the most successful.  'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.'  With that beginning, it is no surprise to later encounter a wizard, dwarves, ogres, elves, goblins, or a dragon.

I'm not sure that I 100% agree with this. Most contemporary urban fantasy has elements of magic entwined with the real world. If the viewpoint character doesn't know how magic works or isn't able to do it himself than the reader can be surprised and enjoy discovering it along with him. In this case the introduction of the more mystical elements of the Jewish faith early on, along with the story about the golem, gave me a hint that the story could lead us in that direction. In some ways this kind of story resonates more than stories in which wizards and warlocks are running around all over the place; if magic is unexpected in the world and unexpected to the viewpoint character then it feels more impactful. Otherwise you get things like magic light spells that have no more impact than the idea of a flashlight.

The Word of Nash is the word of Nash and it is Nash's word.


ajames

  • Lochage
  • *****
  • Posts: 358
Reply #68 on: September 29, 2007, 09:48:10 PM
Good point, Czhorat.  I'll have to amend my working theory to allow that both approaches can, and often do, work well. 



Kaa

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 620
  • Trusst in me, jusst in me.
    • WriteWright
Reply #69 on: October 02, 2007, 05:25:21 PM
I just wanted to mention, in amongst all the talk about golems and mind control and god vs. science, that I thought the story was excellent just on the father/son/hero dynamic alone.

If you take out everything else, just that bit alone is a compelling story.  The son believes the father to be rigidly against his pursuit of science and wants him to be a rabbi, so he's afraid to tell him about the letter.  The father wants his son to follow his passion, even if it means he won't be a rabbi.  Neither can or will say anything to the other because of fear or pride or sheer oink-headedness.  And then the hero comes along and allows the son to show that he understands both his hero's passion and that of his father.

To me, that is the real story, here, not the Nazis or the golems.

I enjoyed it, and I thought the Sleeping Dane coming to life at the end was exactly the right touch.  He set up the gun in act 1; he had to use it in act 3.

I invent imaginary people and make them have conversations in my head. I also write.

About writing || About Atheism and Skepticism (mostly) || About Everything Else


Jhite

  • Palmer
  • **
  • Posts: 47
    • Great Hites
Reply #70 on: October 06, 2007, 01:12:34 AM
Very well written piece.  I the inclusion of a real life character in piece of SF is always a challenge, and I think that this author handled it well.  Not too much of use of him, no extra heroic actions attributed to him.  All in all, a good balance was struck.

I would have loved to heard more about the atom and the soul / spirit, but seeing that the story was already nearly and hour in length some things would have had to have been cut, so i am not sure that there was really much that could have been done there.


Captain James T. Kirk
I'm sorry I can't here you over the sound of how awesome I am
http://GreatHites.blogspot.com


contra

  • Peltast
  • ***
  • Posts: 100
Reply #71 on: October 06, 2007, 06:12:21 PM
I had tears in my eyes at several occasions during this one.

I was at work.

I remember why I stopped listening to this podcast at work now
>_>

Great story. 
Anything that makes me emotional, makes me think, and gets my brain worknig at work; has done its job.

---
Mike---Glasgow.  Scotland.-->


ClintMemo

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 680
Reply #72 on: October 12, 2007, 12:15:51 PM
Coming in way late on this one....

There were three really great ideas included in this story, the obvious one being about the Kabala and mathematics.  I was also really taken by the Rabbi's explanation of the Nazi captain being an "empty man" who is "easily filled up" with such things as guns and uniforms.   The third idea was the also the Rabbi's. I liked how he explained to Bohr that the sleeping Dane had awoken since it was the Danes who were risking their own lives helping the jews escape.   What made these ideas work so well was that they were an intricate part of the story, not just a neat idea thrown in as an aside.   It's not often that you get a story with great ideas, good characters, meaningful character development, magic, suspense and scenes of Nazi's meeting a gruesome death!  Bravo!


Life is a multiple choice test. Unfortunately, the answers are not provided.  You have to go and find them before picking the best one.


wakela

  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 779
    • Mr. Wake
Reply #73 on: October 22, 2007, 12:40:30 AM
IMHO, this is an engaging, well-written story.  The characters and conversations rang true.  When my iPod incorrectly thought that I had listened to the whole thing and decided that I didn't need to be troubled with hearing it again, I poked and prodded iTunes until I got it back to finish. 

The statue waking up and killing Nazis was cool, but weaker than the rest of the story.  I prefer the interpretation that the living statue and the jedi mind trick were not reality, but the vivid memories of an imaginative child dealing with an experience too horrible to remember clearly.  In his mind the Nazis received  justice for killing his father.  In reality they probably didn't.

Making golems:  I know nothing about Judaism.  But if making a golem is a sin, then you don't make a golem.   You don't avoid sin to keep yourself out of hell, you avoid sin because God tells you to.  It seems to me that if the living statue was reality, then the Rabbi created it in a moment of weakness, not a moment of strength.



Unblinking

  • Sir Postsalot
  • Hipparch
  • ******
  • Posts: 8729
    • Diabolical Plots
Reply #74 on: September 28, 2010, 06:26:42 PM
I know some people feel a little let-down with the ending but the truth of the matter is, if Sullydog took out the giant golem stomping and slashing Nazis with his giant-ass sword, then this would be a WWII escape story *without* a giant golem stomping and slashing Nazis with his giant-ass sword.  And for me, that would have been a travesty  ;) 

*points up*  Even though I've seen Nazi-smashing golems before, even at Escape Artists once already, it hasn't gotten old yet.  I didn't think it was out of place at all here, it was foreshadowed, and showed up as expected.  Especially with the title I was waiting for it to show up sooner.  My one real complaint, in fact, is that the title gave too much away before the story even started.

As Kaa said, the father/son/hero dynamic was one of the best parts of the story.  The characters felt real, their conversations authentic.

I love a story that can add new viewpoints of religion, and I liked the mixing of science and religion in this one.  I've never really understood why some think that science and religion can't mix.  If you want to believe in both, then one statement solves all the problems:  "God made the universe, including the parts that are observed through science."  Conflict resolved.