I can just about remember reading this; it's a very clear story, with a model narrator who must've been easier to write than most. His only really strange quality was realising that deamons can be internal from a religious image rather than simply talking with anyone normally. I've always been meaning to ask where you got the idea of James beating himself, too.

If they wrote his biography, did he become famous for something apart from imaginative fiction? Even if it's simple, there's the old message here that both worlds make different people, but perfectly contented ones.

Off topic slightly, have you read any HDM stories by Snapdragonsmile? I don't know if you'd like them, but I thought at least she was going about it seriously.

I especially liked the way you were able to blend HDM with World War II history. (I knew the protagonists were in big trouble the moment Coventry was mentioned.)

My favorite part was when "James Hallicraft" and Sappho are in the church and realize that the people of "our world" are human after all, and not "un-people" as they had been told. This raises an interestin question. Just how would Asriel and Coulter have reacted if they saw Will with Lyra before Kirjava became visible? Imagine, their daughter in the arms of a sub-human animal-thing?

To summarize, I find your stories set in the HDM multiverse every bit as detailed and thought provoking as Mr. Pullman's original trilogy. Please keep 'em coming.

I needn't mention that you're the best damn writer of HDM fics out there, since I'm pretty certain you've heard that before. Well, I guess I just said it again.

I am a fan of your fics in general, but especially ones like this that are fairly distant from the actual storyline of His Dark Materials. You do a great job of writing an original short story and then setting it, seamlessly, in the HDM universe (multiverse?). The addition of the little note is perfect; it does remind me of the way Pullman introduces the 'extra material' in his HDM books, though I'm not sure that the similarity is intentional.

One thing that is a little odd is that a 'window' can open from London to Coventry. Considering that, by 1997, England is positioned quite firmly in the Arctic ocean (relative to our world), Those worlds must have done a hell of a lot of shifting over sixty years. But then, it's really up to the individual author to decide exactly how these things work...

I haven't actually seen Gone with the Wind, only glimpsed part of it while some members of my family were watching it. Did indeed seem like 'a load of old tosh', but I know exactly what James Hallicraft would say to that.

All in all, it's great to see you're writing more fanfics, and exactly the kind I'm interested in. Please, keep-it-up.

-StarMan.

Wonderful story. I love the Gone with the Wind references. And that's an interesting premise, large amounts of electricity fuse a daemon back into the humans soul, allowing them both to survive and live out a natural lifespan in this universe. Kind of like something I'm working for my first HDM fic only it uses large amounts of medication.