'How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe'

Who? What? When? Where? | 'How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe' is a 2011 novel, written by Charles Yu. We recommend buying a copy from your local bookshop, or from Bookshop.org. 

Plot | In Minor Universe 31, people want to change the past by using time machines. But it rarely goes as planned. So author and protagonist, Charles Yu, intervenes and helps save people from themselves. 

NPR's Review Verbatim | 'How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe' contented itself with exploring that classic chestnut of speculative fiction, the time paradox, it would likely make for an enjoyable sci-fi yarn. But Yu's novel is a good deal more ambitious, and ultimately more satisfying, than that. It's about time travel and cosmology, yes, but it's also about language and narrative -- the more we learn about Minor Universe 31, the more it resembles the story space of the novel we're reading, which is full of diagrams, footnotes, pages left intentionally (and meaningfully) blank and brief chapters from the owner's manual of our narrator's time machine… Yu grafts the laws of theoretical physics onto the yearnings of the human heart so thoroughly and deftly that the book's technical language and mathematical proofs take on a sense of urgency."

The Economist's Review | 'A brainy reverie of sexbots, rayguns, time travel and Buddhist zombie mothers… Packed with deft emotional insight.'

Why do we like it? | It's an extremely inventive novel. For all the English majors who took literary criticism courses in college, this work of meta-fiction hits all the high notes. Sci-Fi rarely manages to transcend the genre. This one's emotionally resonant and pretty funny. 

Rating | 8.3/10

Reviewed By | Henry