u/DocWatson42

Greetings and felicitations. I've just been reminded of a fantasy story, likely published in either Analog or Asimov's magazine, in which God is trying to get humankind to become good on its own, but with his help. He tries just making humans good, but while that works it takes away their free will. He sends angels, but that also fails. He finally hits upon the solution: send angels to breed with humans, causing the species to evolve into goodness.

This is almost certainly not longer than a novelette, and is quite possibly a short story. It was most likely published in the 1980s or early 1990s, which is when I had subscriptions to those magazines. What is this story?

Greetings and felicitations. I was reminded within the last hour or so of a song on one of my tapes about "lawn worshiping like the rest", and the singer's dislike of Lone Star Beer (which the lawn worshipers drink). It's possibly by and/or sung by Mercedes Lackey. What are the title and album?

Edit: Solved!: "Oklahoma Weed Whacker Massacre" by Leslie Fish, sung by Mercedes Lackey. (I should know better—I tell people all the time on low traffic book subs to do just this.)