Of course, everyone knew that Heaven was incomparably superior, but to Neil it had always seemed too remote to consider, like wealth or fame or glamour. For people like him, Hell was where you went when you died, and he saw no point in restructuring his life in hopes of avoiding that. And since God hadn’t previously played a role in Neil’s life, he wasn’t afraid of being exiled from God. The prospect of living without interference, living in a world where windfalls and misfortunes were never by design, held no terror for him.
Another story about love, and a cosmic horror story. Chiang’s SF stories frequently involve fundamental metaphysical changes taken to their logical conclusion. In ‘Hell Is the Absence of God’, the Christian God is real and miracles happen. It turns out that unconditional love is incompatible with the idea that “everything happens for a reason”, and miracles aren’t necessarily good from a human perspective. I felt the bleakness for days.
First published in Starlight 3, 2001. Collected in Stories of Your Life and Others, 2002. Available in podcast form here
A Personal Anthology 