Dan Mclaughlin

Gott Mit Uns: Adventures of a Paleolithic Goddess in the Modern World Dan Mclaughlin

This is the story of an 8 1/2 foot penguin, who is a goddess, who is pursued by two people, who are bureaucrats, through today's America, including Hollywood. This is a comedy. More specifically, this is a fantasy satire of the modern world. A world where a powerful bureaucracy mediates disputes between different gods and their followers. The book introduces two InterDeitific Conflict Resolution Agents (IDCRAs) who spend their days processing requests for personal blessings and curses. But when the resolution agents mix up requests, a Deity No Longer Worshiped Anymore Resulting in Curtailment (DIONWARIC) is summoned to the world to resolve a grade dispute in a religious studies class. To complicate this processing error even further, the ignored goddess comes to Earth in the form of an eight-and-a-half-foot penguin. Armed with their new VOCERA device (Vocal Oversight with Continuously Explained Rules for Action), the two agents venture forth to bring back the oversized, flightless bird. They track her through modern academia where the goddess serves as inspiration, and modern Hollywood where the Goddess proves to be remarkably effective as both an entertainer at children's parties and as a consultant on sword and sorcery movies. They also pass through a modern high school, pie baking competition and an airplane crash. "In a world where religion is seen as a 'wedge' issue, this play finds humor and room for thought for people of all persuasions," author Dan McLaughlin says. "It also looks at what happens to people when filling out forms becomes their life." The book's inspiration comes from questioning of what happens when people of different religious faiths pray for varying results to the same event and why people even bother to pray. "Gott Mit Uns," reflects on a problematic world where powerful bureaucracy exists between different gods and what it does to the people who work there.