Pluto (mythology) says that among the Turdetani, it is "Pluto, and not Hades, who inhabits the region down below." In the discourse "On Mourning" by the Greek author Lucian (2nd century AD), Pluto's "wealth" is the dead he rules over in the abyss "(chasma)"; the name "Hades" is reserved for the underworld itself. In Greek religious practice, Pluto is sometimes seen as the "chthonic Zeus" ("Zeus Chthonios" or "Zeus Catachthonios"), or at least as having functions or significance equivalent to those of Zeus but pertaining to the earth or underworld. In ancient Roman and Hellenistic religion, Pluto was identified with a number
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