{"id":5205,"date":"2011-06-12T15:46:59","date_gmt":"2011-06-12T21:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/?p=5205"},"modified":"2011-06-14T18:02:37","modified_gmt":"2011-06-15T00:02:37","slug":"that-leviathan-whom-thou-hast-made","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/that-leviathan-whom-thou-hast-made\/","title":{"rendered":"That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made by Eric James Stone"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When Harry Malan’s work transferred him to Sol Station deep inside the sun’s core, he didn’t expect to become a Mormon branch president over more than a hundred alien converts to the faith.\u00a0 The Swales, ancient sun-dwelling beings with their own history and culture, travel the universe by naturally teleporting between stars.<\/p>\n

When Harry learns that one of the members of his congregation has been raped, he determines to take it up with the chief Swale.\u00a0 But at several thousand meters long and more than a hundred millenia old, the chief is revered by the Swales as a god incarnate.\u00a0 To make matters worse, the only other eligible female on the station is an atheist xenoanthropologist determined to stop Harry from “polluting” the Swale culture.<\/p>\n

In an alien society millions of years older than humanity, where gods were dwelling among mortals long before the birth of Jesus Christ, is there a place for those who convert to any of the human faiths?<\/p>\n

This story was awesome, and I’m not just saying that because I’m a practicing Mormon.\u00a0 The story concept was brilliant, the alien world was fascinating, and the issues raised were dealt with in a very balanced way.\u00a0 This is a must read for any Latter-day Saint science fiction writer–or for aspiring writers of any religious faith, for that matter.\u00a0 In fact, Eric James Stone<\/a> has it available right now on his website for free–so check it out<\/a>!<\/p>\n

My only issue was that the story didn’t feel fleshed out enough.\u00a0 The Swales were so fascinating, I wanted to spend more time with them–I wanted to explore their culture, learn more about their history and evolution, etc.\u00a0 I also wished there were more detailed descriptions to make me feel like I was there.<\/p>\n

I think that has more to do with the shortcomings of the medium than anything else, though.\u00a0 The piece is an 8,000 word short story \/ novelette, so there isn’t a whole lot of room to flesh things out.\u00a0 Still, the world is so fascinating, can you blame me for wanting more?<\/p>\n

All things considered, “That Leviathan, Whom Thou has Made” definitely deserves the Nebula Award which it won earlier this year, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it wins a Hugo as well.\u00a0 It represents a significant milestone in LDS literature, and is an excellent mainstream piece as well.\u00a0 Whether you’re Mormon, Christian, Muslim, or whatever, if you’re a religiously devout writer of science fiction, this is a must-read.\u00a0 And even if you’re not, it’s still a great story.\u00a0 Highly recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Harry Malan’s work transferred him to Sol Station deep inside the sun’s core, he didn’t expect to become a Mormon branch president over more than a hundred alien converts to the faith.\u00a0 The Swales, ancient sun-dwelling beings with their own history and culture, travel the universe by naturally teleporting between stars. When Harry learns… Continue reading That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made by Eric James Stone<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[221,567,568,99,37],"class_list":["post-5205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-eric-james-stone","tag-hugo-awards","tag-nebula-awards","tag-science-fiction","tag-spirituality","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-1lX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5205"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5234,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5205\/revisions\/5234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}