How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
by Charles Yu
Mem. Ed. $13.99
Pub. Ed. $24.00
You pay $1.00
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists and time-travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician—part counselor, part repairman—steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he's not taking client calls, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog named Ed, and guided by a book entitled How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory.
Charles Yu (the one who, in our world, won the National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award) is sending shock waves through literary space-time with this debut novel—a razor-sharp, absurdly funny and utterly touching adventure through science, fiction and family.
Hardcover : 256 pages
Publisher: Pantheon Books Inc./Random House ( September 07, 2010 )
Item #: 13-135125
ISBN: 9780307379207
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.25 inches
Product Weight: 11.0 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Trying to be Clever, Failing to be Interesting 
August 13, 2011
Charles Yu has some cleverness, but someone needs to tell him that having an interesting, compelling story is the most important thing when writing a novel. I struggled to get almost halfway through this book when I realized that nothing of interest was happening in it, so I quit reading it, life is too short. I can't speak intelligently about the plot, because I barely remember it now and there isn't much anyway. It was something like Time Cop with daddy issues. Sorry to be trite, but I paid money for this book and it wasted my time. ----
Another thing, the cover art shown in the SFBC fliers and on this website, the interesting neon-colored pill shapes, is NOT the same cover that I got. My copy came with a cover with a bunch of silly little ray guns all over it, another disappointment.
Reviewer: Jimmy
Literate and Inventive
July 19, 2011
Obviously, some of these readers here didn't get it. First and foremost, you must go into this with the knowledge that this isn't the sort of science fiction story that would appeal to most members of this club. Instead, this is sci-fi in the vein of, say, Kurt Vonnegut. What the author did with language was strikingly original, so that the reader becomes part of the narrative for a mind-bending, reality-dissolving reading experience. As a character in his own novel, Charles Yu seeks to weave the fact that you're reading that book into the novel itself. Reiterating the central paradox in the story -- the author is caught in a time loop after he shoots a future iteration of himself -- the novel is circular in logic and self-referencing. Using the first person voice, in the loop, Yu is writing the book he's already written before he shot himself -- which is THIS book. At one point, he references a page number, and the page he references is the page you're on at the time, at which moment your reality dovetails with the physical reality of the novel's existence, and with the action in the story. The fact you're reading the novel becomes part of the story. I laughed at the inventiveness of it. This was LITERATURE; not straight sci-fi, not some pulp-flavored space opera, and the time travel was used as a meditation on regret, redemption, and forgiveness. Contrary to what other reviews have stated, the characters were in fact sympathetic, and I cared about them immensely. They were angst-ridden, spiritually bereft human beings looking for a way out, and the story's emotionalism is made more poignant by the surreal use of paradox and language. If you're the type of person who likes sci-fi fantasy or vampire romances, you will not enjoy this story; if you instead enjoy Kurt Vonnegut -- BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS in particular -- this is for you. And, like Vonnegut, it's a relatively quick read, to boot.
Reviewer: Alric
Not very good
April 29, 2011
Lots of tech jargon around the physics of time travel with a very boring underlying plot that had no interesting characters. First book in a while that I just skimmed over and could not get through.
Reviewer: Kevin
Very Depressing
April 21, 2011
This is the most depressing book I've ever read. It mostly talked about failure and the futility of life. It was well written though.
Reviewer: David
Interesting
December 09, 2010
I agree that the humor is minor compared to the rest. The best part of the story is the protagonist's relationship to his parents. I can't say I was enthralled by the 'science fictional' part that much which I don't think was as well fleshed out as the human side. All in all, I thought the author showed considerable writing skill and I would definitely read his next work.
Reviewer: Markl
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