How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe in Ask Charles Yu!

May 12, 2011 Sandy Parsons rated it really liked it

Shelves: book-club, science-fiction

This book has all the same problems that every time travel story has, those moments when you're going "Wait, but..." and then a little later, you're like, "But...?" until you finally end up glossing over the paradoxes/improbablities/undefinable-in-words so that you can appreciate the narrative, which, in this case was a little thin. This is, I think, in part, due to an attempt to circumvent the reader's delving too deep and realizing it's all a fancy magic trick, a bunch of glittering streamers This book has all the same problems that every time travel story has, those moments when you're going "Wait, but..." and then a little later, you're like, "But...?" until you finally end up glossing over the paradoxes/improbablities/undefinable-in-words so that you can appreciate the narrative, which, in this case was a little thin. This is, I think, in part, due to an attempt to circumvent the reader's delving too deep and realizing it's all a fancy magic trick, a bunch of glittering streamers sparkling only so long as there's someone on the other side blowing them at you.

Still, there are some laugh out loud bits, like the advice that "...if you ever see yourself coming out of a time machine, run" and some keen, current pop culture references appreciable by everyone but especially precious to readers of both literary and mainstream sf. Still further, there are some moments that make you go hmmm, like when his father wonders, "How do we know what it means to percieve an event as presently occuring, rather than as a memory of a past event? ...How do we move the infinitesimal window of the present through the viewfinder at such a constant rate?" Finally, there are moments of jaw-dropping poignancy,like the following quote, which manages to both be true and complex in a way that you always had the knowledge inside you and are glad that finally somebody pointed it out to you-

"...it's true: time does heal. It will do so whether you like it or not, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. If you're not careful, time will take away everything that ever hurt you, everything you have ever lost, and replace it with knowledge. Time is a machine: it will convert your pain into experience. Raw data will be compiled, will be translated into a more comprehensible language. The individual events of your life will be transmuted into another substance and you will never be able to reverse it, you will never again have the original moment back in its uncatergorized, preprocessed state. It will force you to move on and you will not have a choice in the matter."

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Jun 13, 2011 Steffanie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I am now in love with Charles Yu, this bright new young author. I feel like Yu was onto something *so* big here. Everything about the book excited me. I read it in just a couple of days. The cover excited me. The plot description excited me. Every page I read excited me a little more.

The first time that I predicted that this was going to be my new favorite book was on page 17:

(Yu is a time machine repairman...and these machines only break down when people try to break the rules---change the pas I am now in love with Charles Yu, this bright new young author. I feel like Yu was onto something *so* big here. Everything about the book excited me. I read it in just a couple of days. The cover excited me. The plot description excited me. Every page I read excited me a little more.

The first time that I predicted that this was going to be my new favorite book was on page 17:

(Yu is a time machine repairman...and these machines only break down when people try to break the rules---change the past or what-have-you)...

"But the reason I have job security is that people have no idea how to make themselves happy. Even with a time machine. I have job security because what the customer wants, when you get right down to it, is to relive his very worst monment, over and over and over again. Willing to pay a lot of money to do it, too."

The theme of regret throught the novel is very strong. Powerfully worded, I believe. There are so many quotes that I want to put up here, because there are so many beautiful sentences. Well, since I'm a sucker for romance, I'll give you another one:

"All of her heart, a meaningless phrase, but correct and precise, too. She used her heart to love him, not her head, and not her words and not her thoughts or ideas or feelings or any other vehicle or object or device people use to deliver love or love-like things. She used her heart, as a physical transmitter of love, and what came out of it was no more voluntary than gravity or time or time travel or the laws of fictional science itself."

Now, I really love that sentence, but what does it even mean? It's cute, but no...the heart is not a physical transmitter of love. That would be gross. It *is* words that transmit love. The heart may feel it, but you can not touch your heart to your lover's heart to transmit some loving electrons. This is the problem I have with the book. There are a lot of really cool sounding ideas, and sentences that make you think. But many of them are empty. I think are suppose to sound cool, more than anything else.

The premise of the story is seriously and ridiculously awesome!! And Yu keeps building and building, bringing us closer and closer to the moment of awe (that I think we all felt coming). And then it ended. It's almost like the book isn't about what we are lead to believe it is about. It's not really about time paradoxes or tears in the fabric of the universe. It's really about loss and regret and guilt and shame and every other negative feeling you can conjure up when you think about the past.

I did say *almost*. Some of the science-fiction in it is certainly new and fresh and not stolen from the older greats of sci-fi. And the non-narration pieces of the novel--the parts that are meant to resemble the handbook alluded to in the title...are very cool.

i.e. "Theorem- At some point in your life, this statement will be true: Tomorrow you will lose everything forever." It's cool things like this that keep the book compelling, but in the end, I just wish it would have come together a little more. It needed to be clearer, and more plot driven, and less regret filled (at least by the time the end rolled around)...or else what did Charles Yu teach us? I didn't learn anything. I suppose that's where the loss of the star (4 stars) comes from. I thought the book was the coolest thing ever, but I don't feel any different today. Other authors change me a bit. Some (like Haruki Murakami and Issac Asimov and John Irving) change me a lot! Charles Yu needs a little more practice turning an awesome idea into a truly moving work of art.

I definitely recommend the book, and even though I can't help but be a little dissapointed, I would do anything to be this guy's friend. Charles Yu is the guy I want at my party. Perhaps I can find him and change him from 'the man I never befriended' to 'the man that I am going to befriend someday.' (reference to the novel) :D

Cheers!
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Dec 04, 2010 Linda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction

This extraordinary little book was a wonderful stumble-upon, which I must confess grabbed me with its geeky title and suckered me in with its raygun-wallpaper cover from across the room at the local public library. A literary you-had-me-at-hello, after a few pages quickly consumed while standing by the "new fiction" shelf, I knew it was going to be funny and quirky, but I was not prepared for just how good it was going to be.

Now, there's the first obvious caveat: I think you really need to have This extraordinary little book was a wonderful stumble-upon, which I must confess grabbed me with its geeky title and suckered me in with its raygun-wallpaper cover from across the room at the local public library. A literary you-had-me-at-hello, after a few pages quickly consumed while standing by the "new fiction" shelf, I knew it was going to be funny and quirky, but I was not prepared for just how good it was going to be.

Now, there's the first obvious caveat: I think you really need to have a soft spot for science fiction to fully enjoy this book. There's just so many in-jokes woven throughout the narrative guaranteed to warm the sci-fi fan's heart. However, it's so much more than a weird and wonderful tale for engineers. It's an often funny, often aching tale of family love and familial disasters, of disappointing yourself and being disappointed by others, of trying to flee from painful truths, and at the same time needing to push yourself towards those painful truths in order to make something right.

If it's true that comedy is tragedy plus time, then when you live in a science fictional universe -- where time travel is a constant and time itself is negotiable -- comedy is tragedy all the time. Perhaps this explains how this book manages to be funny and melancholy at the same time.

The book is brilliant in so many different ways. Yu's narrative voice is so flowing, the pace of his prose is straight-forward and natural -- or rather, I should say, nothing about the pace of his prose appears to be anything other than straight-forward and natural, until suddenly you find yourself doing a sort of double-take and realizing that he's kind of glided into a stream of conscousness rambling that reflects the ever-widening mind-bending circles you get into yourself when trying to ponder the imponderable mysteries of time, the universe, reality, and the nature of existence itself. The language seamlessly expresses the mental state. Even the conclusion -- which I am sure occasioned multiple flip-backs through the book before solving the final riddle, for more readers than just me -- is really only an example of form following content: Narrator Charles must re-live a time loop who knows how many times before being able to break through it, so aren't we as readers doing much the same thing by having to double back on our own past (re-reading) to find the clue to the final resolution of the book in the present? And isn't that simply the most fitting conclusion for a book whose title is the title of the book within that book?

In short, this was one of the best, most imaginative works of fiction I've read in a long time. I walk away happy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Favorite quote, by far:

My manager IMs me.

We get along pretty well. His name is Phil. Phil is an old copy of Microsoft Middle Manager 3.0. His passive-agressive is set to low. Whoever configured him did me a solid.

(p. 40)

So that explains it. Evidently my managers have been coming out of the Microsoft Middle Manager beta release.

And, let's just say I haven't been quite so lucky with the passive-agressive setting.... ...more

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Jun 07, 2011 Lily rated it really liked it

"Enjoy the elastic present, which can accommodate as little or as much as you want to put in there. Stretch it out, live inside of it."

This is basically is how I felt. This book took me through a small, original, creative adventure that was able to knock out quickly. It had very funny moments with sex-robots and childhood Han Solo memories that literally made me LOL. [I am a little of a science geek] I really cared for his relationship between him and his father. It was lovely to re-live those ...more

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Jun 27, 2011 Roxana rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I LOVED the book, the story was so interesting, it reminded me a lot of "Doctor Who". I am not an avid reader of science fiction, but this definitely kept me interested in the story. It was funny, a quest to know one self, and it has tricks hidden for readers too. Very creative and refreshing! ...more

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Sep 07, 2010 Aaron rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ifonlythereweremorestars

Somewhere between the early sci-fi of Jonathan Lethem and Ben Marcus' The Age of Wire and String: Stories, "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe" manages to transform the language used to talk about the quotidian heartbreaks of family life in way that made me see it again as powerfully sad and not merely commonplace. It's the sort of experimental fiction that never felt like a chore to read, or particularly showy. It's clear what Charles Yu is setting out to do 10 pages in, and the ...more

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Jun 07, 2011 Paula rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own, read-on-ereader, read-in-2011

From the moment I saw this book I knew I wanted to read it. I never actually read the synopsis, I just loved the title and hoped that whatever it offered would be wonderful. I expected a fun science fiction adventure novel that would be an easy read, what I got was a super meta-fiction mindwarp but it was awesome. It took effort to read, but it was still a very fun read.

The protagonist of the story is Charles Yu (note: also the author) who lives in his time machine (which is approximately the s ...more

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Oct 07, 2010 Justyn Rampa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy

I am done.

This book is one of the most unique books I have ever read.

Admittedly, I don't read much sci-fi as I tend to read more fantasy so it is possible some of the plot devices may seem familiar to other readers.

The book itself transcends mere sci-fi conventions however and becomes a story about a son and his father, the family they struggle to be a part of, and how all us can get lost in the past.

The author does a brilliant job of creating a novel that exists on several levels and to discuss ...more

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Nov 23, 2010 g BRETT rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science-fiction, 52-in-2010, fiction

Just finished this book. I really enjoyed it, but am not reaally sure how to describe. In fact, it is nearly impossible to give any kind of summary without giving away key points. I can say that it is nothing like I expected it to be, not really what the liner notes led me to think it was. (Hint: it is not at all like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.)

Will have to give it a bit more thought before writing more about it. ...more

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Jul 14, 2011 Pat rated it liked it

I'm still not sure what I think of this book. It is kind of a "metabook." The book written by Charles Yu is about a man named Charles Yu who finds a book that about his life as a time machine repairman. I thought the book was clever and structured in an interesting way, but it was not as funny or interesting as I had hoped. ...more

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Apr 11, 2011 Carolyn rated it really liked it

If you like movies like Memento, you'll love this book. It reminds me of a bad trip wherein I was once stuck in a loop myself after a Pink Floyd laser light show at the planetarium in the 70's....Fun for the chronologically displaced, more philosophical than Jasper Fforde, less gothic than Audrey Niffenegger. ...more

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Dec 24, 2010 Stuart rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is a novel that you have to like the style, as the substance is thin. It concentrates on the life of a time travel repairperson who feels dissatisfied with his life and quite a large portion of the book is given over to flashbacks that indicate the difficulties he had in his relationship with his father. The plot ambles along and not a lot happens, you may find this charming or you may find it annoying. This book is like the friend you chill out with, but others tell you is boring.

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Jun 25, 2011 Wendy Yu rated it really liked it

I admit I first wanted to read him b/c of his awesome last name, but then I kept reading him b/c he is good at writing! Like, really good! He takes traditionally exciting genres (superhero (in "Third Class Superhero"), sci-fi (this book)) and makes everything and everyone in those universes REALLY PAINFULLY SAD. Every life is a bitter disappointment. Like Richard Yates meets Watchman. The sci-fi sci in this gets a little annoying, and I ding him for gratuitously mentioning his other book in here ...more

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