I vividly remember being in a hotel room with A Certain Editor, who was telling Some Other Editor that he'd just nailed down a Chiang story for A Certain Anthology.

The cheer of joy from the other end was quite audible throughout the room.

Buy this.

I was at a party on Saturday, and we ended up reading Ted Chiang stories out loud...

So that one hit the "one click" spot...

Ted's story "Hell is the Absense of God" does for Christianity what _The Iron Dragon's Daughter_ did for Wicca: asks the question, do you really want to live in a world with an active/interventionist G-D/Goddess?

He's a hell of a writer, and people are going to have a hell of a time deciding between "Hell" and Charlie Stross' "Lobsters" on the Hugo ballot this year.

Cool. I read 72 letters, and a search turned up
Understanding, similarly archived:

http://web.archive.org/web/20000919085407/...k/stories/under.htm

This goes in the shopping cart today.

"72 Letters" didn't do much for me, but "Story of Your Life" is flat-out amazing. I started reading "Hell is the Absence of God" in the store and said, "Wait, he has a collection coming out soon, doesn't he?"

Glad to hear it's out. Clearly, a trip to the store is in order.

Yeah, I'm with Kate. "72 Letters" has got some way cool stuff in it, but it was "Story of Your Life" that really rocked my world. Simply one of the best stories I've ever read. I'm currently concentrating on this year's Hugo nominees in my fiction reading (Perdido Street Station and some of the short fiction to go) but when I'm done I'll pick up Ted's collection and get a head-start on next year, when "Liking What You See: A Documentary" will doubtlessly be on the ballot.

And ditto Cory: Ted's a really nice guy, and absurdly modest.

Ted is indeed amazing, humble and decent. Oh, and he's a great writer too, and with the publication of this collection he's in the company of other greats (Karen Fowler and Kelly Link come to mind) whose first books were story collections. We need more folks like him in Fictionland.