AH Vignette: The Fear of God

Thank you to all of you for your comments - this is something I have wanted to write for about a year, so for it to receive such a unanimously positive response is a great relief. Thank you all.

I'll respond a little to the more detailed comments.

Delighted to see this finally come into fruition Tom - everything that I had hoped for, and quite a bit more besides!

Very dark, obviously, and a wonderful mixture of the realistic - but toyed with the hint that there may well be a higher-power at work here as well. I think that you've got Rommel down rather well here, and his internal angst and conflict is quite clear to see.

Thanks, Jack, I know you knew about this and it's good that it delivered on your expectations.

I know it says that it's just a vignette, but I think you really should think about making this a full length project. I think Hitler assassinations are such an interesting subject that you rarely see done well or with the quality of writing that you have.

Thank you, but I don't plan to take it any further - I'm not really knowledgeable enough about the mid-1943 Third Reich to do it justice, and part of the mystery of this comes from its short length and the fact we only get Rommel's perspective.

Absolutely chilling. There's not enough Alternate History/Magical Realism out there- too often timelines snap from plausibility to ASB, but this sits in the hollow, haunted space in between.

Thank you, that's exactly what I was going for - see my next comment.

That was really, really good. I especially like the way each of the signs had some kind of rational explanation behind it.

I won't deny that I feel slightly conflicted about 'god-fearing' Rommel, but that's more to do with reservations over OTL Rommel than your depiction of him.

Thanks Ed, that's exactly what I wanted to do - the rational explanation stuff. I deliberately made it a grey area - all these things could just be outcomes of either OTL's WWII or a slightly different one (perhaps a limited deployment of Operation Vegetarian caused the cattle diseases, for example).

Or they could be Literally The Ten Plagues.

Is Vignette a one time thing?

It is, yes. As above, I don't plan to continue this, though I will be writing more vignettes and longer works - do feel free to look at my wiki page for a list of the works I've done on the forum already.

What this has shown me is that I am capable of doing something with a WWII setting. As that's something I'd like to return to in a proper way at some point, this is good news.
 

Thande

Donor
What this has shown me is that I am capable of doing something with a WWII setting. As that's something I'd like to return to in a proper way at some point, this is good news.

I remember you commenting that you'd like to do more with your WW2 knowledge, I would certainly support this.

I also think you're right not to continue this, it's definitely the sort of plot that works better as a brief glimpse and then let the imagination fill in the rest.
 
I remember you commenting that you'd like to do more with your WW2 knowledge, I would certainly support this.

I also think you're right not to continue this, it's definitely the sort of plot that works better as a brief glimpse and then let the imagination fill in the rest.
I've got to agree with not taking this further. Seeing it from Rommell's point of view and his alone leaves it entirely up to the reader whether it is truly the Plagues or if it is not. It can quite easily be coincidence and evidence of an even darker WW2 than OTL. Nothing more is needed or should be added. To me, it is perfect just as it is. Dark with Rommell either insane or the patriot killing Hitler before the final calamity (or both). What could expanding this achieve?
 
This is magnificent... the narrative elements mesh particularly well to build suspense by the ending line. Bravo!
 
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AndyC

Donor
I loved that.

Doing a short vignette and doing it in such a way as to be complete and satisfying is a real skill - one I don't have, but can recognise in another. Bravo!
 

Japhy

Banned
Oh good this got bumped.

Meadow, this was absolutely excellent. Firstly it was a marvelous shift in direction from what most of these were AHV's were playing with and of course as you say it was a shift from what you normally do and in both cases it was excellent. Its a good little psychological piece, as others note, it doesn't have to be God or not, but in either case its a marvelous picture of Rommel cracking/remembering what human decency is. I massively enjoyed the projection of his motivation on the "lucky young man" who's serving as Adolph's Doorman.

Damned good stuff.
 
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