Book Review: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
August 14, 2012 27 Comments
I love to read science fiction every now and then. Especially time travel has my interest. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is about a time machine repair man. It sounded quirky and good fun, but I didn’t like it as much as I’d hoped.
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: What it is about
From the publisher’s website: “With only TAMMY – a slightly tearful computer with self-esteem issues – a software boss called Phil – Microsoft Middle Manager 3.0 – and an imaginary dog called Ed for company, fixing time machines is a lonely business and Charles Yu is stuck in a rut. He’s spent the better part of a decade navel-gazing, spying on 39 different versions of himself in alternate universes (and discovered that 35 of them are total jerks). And he’s kind of fallen in love with TAMMY, which is bad because she doesn’t have a module for that.
With all that’s on his mind, perhaps it’s no surprise that when he meets his future self, he shoots him in the stomach. And that’s a beginner’s mistake for a time machine repairman. Now he’s stuck in a time loop, going in circles forever. All he has, wrapped in brown paper, is the book his future self was trying to press into his hands. It’s called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. And he’s the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could save him.”
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: What I thought
What I like about time travel, is exploring different times, the author’s ingenuity of predicting the future or of giving an apparently accurate account of what the past is like to live in for a modern person.
In this book, there is nothing like that because Charles Yu is stuck in time. He lives in his time machine, which is rather small, think Tardis without the expansion inside. This situation turned out to be rather too limited for me.
Some of it went over my head and roughly the first half of the book wasn’t all that exciting. When it got to the book that Charles got from his future self, it became a bit more interesting. Especially the search for his father (and where he found his father) was quite clever.
The book is all about Charles Yu and his thoughts. Very little actually happens. You have to be a pretty geeky person to enjoy this book, I think. I tried, went into it expecting to enjoy it (I’m half-geek, half non-geek) but the book never really grabbed me.
Rating: 3.5 (out of 5)
Number of pages: 244
First published: 2010
I got this book: from Bookmooch, a book swap site
Genre: science fiction
Have you read this book?
Did you enjoy it?
Judith, the stories about time machine are my obsession. I love the possibility and amazing adventure along with it. But I would love if this book have more exploring stuffs to it. Thanks for the review
Tes, I’m also a time travel fan!
As I told you before, Judith, this was an okay read for me, but not the exciting one I had hoped for. The finding of his father was clever, though, but as for you, a lot of this book went over my head.
One of these days (or weeks) I am going to read The Time Machine by Wells. Have you read this? I have no idea exactly what to expect from it, though I hope I will like it better than Yu’s book.
Nadine, I haven’t read *The Time Machine* – I hope you’ll enjoy it. I have no idea either what it will be like. I fear it may be a it outdated/old fashioned, but I don’t really know.
Judith and Nadine – I adore The Time Machine, it is one of my all time favourites – yes, it is outdated in places but most of it is still very relevant and exciting today.
Thanks, Marie, I will start reading it today.
Thanks for letting us know, Marie. I’d never seriously considered reading it, but now I may.
I’ve been eyeing this book for a while now, but worried I wasn’t sci-fi geeky enough to enjoy it. After your review, I’m going to assume most of the knowledge would be well over my head as well. Maybe one day I’ll be brave enough to give it a go!
Brooke, thanks for your comment. I have no idea whether you’d like it, but you could always give it a try!
I adore time travel books too and thought I’d love this one but ended up not finishing it. It just started so slowly and I couldn’t get into it. Can you recommend some time travel books that are better?
Book Nympho, good to hear that the book couldn’t hold your interest. I made it to the end, but it was not easy!
Good books about time travel? Hmm, there are loads:
11/22/63 by Stephen King (very good!)
Return to Summer House by Judy Deveraux
The End of Mr Y by Scarlett Thomas (a bit geeky)
Kindred by Octavia Butler (very good!)
Replay by Ken Grimwood (a little geeky, very good)
Well, actually, look here for more ideas, the stars below the books are my rating.
Thanks so much for these recommendations! I’m off to check out your list and find a great book to read.
Book Nympho, my list is quite varied – all kinds of genres, so I hope there’s one ot two that you will enjoy.
I’ll add one of my favorites, Time and Again by Jack Finney.
I haven’t heard of that one, Leslie. Thanks!
I’ve got this on my kindle & hope to read it some point soon.
Gary, I think you’ll like this book better than I did.
I was sooo disappointed in this book. I wanted science fiction and time travel and instead I got a literary story about a young man searching for his father, worrying about his mother and confronting his dysfunctional childhood… all while stuck in time machine. A very weird book. I figured I wasn’t the target audience.
Leslie, I felt exactly the same.
The techies at work would love this one! I do love the concept, but time travel is always a bit of a brain-addler for me!
Stephanie, I do feel this is more a men’s book than a women’s book. I’m fine with time travelling, but not the way it was dealt with in this book.
I want to read this! I pitched it to my bookclub but it got soundly voted down.
Care, I think it’s for the better that your book club didn’t want to read this book. It’s not for everyone. I hope you get round to reading it. Wonder what you make of it!
I can’t believe you found it through Bookmooch! I’ve been a bit disappointed with the site lately… but this means that there is hope
This book was recommended to me by a friend, but I’ve not yet read it. I like geeky books, but this sounds like parts of it may just go over my head…
Chinoiseries, on the long run, I’ve been OK with bookmooch, but not if I quickly wanted a book. Some books never become available and others sometimes. I wonder if you’d like this. I do like geeky books but it wasn’t for me.
Hmm, this book intrigues me. Like you I’d describe myself as part-geek and I have a pretty good grounding in classic SF. I’ll keep it on the “maybe” backburner.
Maybe it helps to have read a lot of classic SF, Kate. You may at least appreciate the book more than me. Whether you will actually like it, I’m not sure.