Greek sea gods conform to a single type: that of Homer's "halios geron" or Old Man of the Sea: Nereus, Proteus, Glaucus and Phorkys. These sea gods are not as powerful as Poseidon, the main god of the oceans and seas. Each one is a shape-shifter, a prophet, and the father of either radiantly beautiful nymphs or hideous monsters (or both, in the case of Phorkys). Nymphs and monsters blur, for Hesiod relates that Phorcys was wed to the "beautiful-cheeked" Ceto, whose name is merely the feminine of the monstrous Cetus, to whom Andromeda was due to be sacrificed. Each appearance in myth
Hell Is the Absence of God single SF story of 2002". Conversely, John C. Wright called it a "trite antichristian propaganda". Elf Sternberg has compared the novelette to C. S. Lewis's "The Great Divorce", saying that although Lewis is a supporter of God, Chiang is "far more ambivalent". In a review of Chiang's "Stories of Your Life and Others" in "The Guardian", English fantasy author China Miéville called "Hell Is the Absence of God" the showpiece of Chiang's collection. He wrote that despite the story's religious underpinnings, there is no "moralistic "Sturm und Drang", and Chiang "does not descend to the finger-wagging one might expect from