Celebrity Chekhov

When a man in the audience asked [Charles] Yu if the pistol he referred to in the novel is "Chekhov's gun," Yu is at first dumbfounded. "I guess it could be," he stammered. After the questioner clarified a bit—explaining Anton Chekhov's rule that if a gun is mentioned at the beginning of a story, it will have to be fired by the end—Yu laughed and shook his head. "I thought you were talking about Chekov from Star Trek," he said, relieved.

—Paul Constant, The Slog

N.B.: The original title of this post was: "Who are Yu?"