How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel

by Charles Yu

From the National Book Award–⁠winning author of Interior Chinatown, comes a razor-sharp, hilarious, and touching story of a son searching for his father ... through quantum space-time.
 
Every day in Minor Universe 31 people get into time machines and try to change the past. That's where Charles Yu, time travel technician, steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he's not taking client calls, Yu visits his mother and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. The key to locating his father may be found in a book. It's called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and somewhere inside it is information that will help him. It may even save his life.

• ISBN10: 0307739457
• ISBN13: 9780307739452
• Publish Date: 28 June 2011 (first published 1 January 2010)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Random House Inc
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 256
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780307739452

Reviews

[nora]

DNF at 80% because this book reads like someone in a NaNoWriMo panic trying to make the longest sentences in order to hit the word goal without doing any actual plotting.

There is nothing about this book that works for me and I don't understand anything.

[arronkau]

Weirdly compelling and well-written, but ultimately more about itself than about anything else.