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January 10, 2005

Ted Chiang's Hell is the Absence of God

I am currently reading science fiction author Ted Chiang's collection of short stories. Today, I read Hell is the Absence of God. I have never read science fiction written by an Asian author before, so I was looking forward to reading some of Chiang's work.

At first, I thought Chiang was proselytizing, which would have made me hate the story. As I read further along in the story, though, I realized that the author is just guiding the reader towards thinking more provocatively about life after death. The existance of angels in the story seemed somewhat surreal to me - I wasn't sure what to make of that. Overall, I thought the story was a bit sad, but interesting.

This story is definitely worth a read, whether you are religious or not.

Posted by Kathy at January 10, 2005 09:26 PM

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