How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

Charles Yu's debut novel, How to Life Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, could be described as a story about contemporary family life disguised as science fiction. It concerns a young man who has spent most of the past decade in a small time machine in his job as a time machine repairman. He makes calls on people who have rented time machines for recreational purposes but have become stuck in time and must be rescued by him. As the novel progresses, it is revealed that this man's name is the same as that of the author, Charles Yu. The protagonist is a lonely and rather sad fellow, who spends much of his non-working hours drifting along in his capsule, thinking about his past and his parents, especially his father who disappeared long ago. Accompanied only by his dog and a computer that has the pixilated face of a female and a cartoon-like voice, Charles hopes to one day locate his father in some alternate universe to which he apparently has traveled in a time machine. Charles's parents, a few clients, and several street performers are the only other humans that he encounters during the course of the story. He makes one trip to a city in Minor Universe 31, a residential and entertainment world made mostly from a science fiction "substrate," where the company for which he works is headquartered. His objective is to have maintenance work done on his time machine and when he goes to pick it up, he encounters his future self. Panicking, he draws his service revolver and shoots his future self in the stomach, just as his future self is attempting to tell him that the key is the book. He has no idea what this means as he stumbles into his time machine and races away. On the capsule's console, he finds a manual-type book that has the same title as the novel.

With the help of his computer, he realizes that he must read the book and make amendments and additions to it as he goes along. At some point in the future, he must give the completed book to his past self, who then will shoot him and begin the rewriting process again in an endless cycle. Charles realizes he has become stuck in a time loop. By the rules of time travel, if he changes anything that happens during this loop, he risks entering an alternate universe from which he might not emerge. Under the circumstances, escaping the time loop appears to be extremely difficult. He may be doomed to spend the rest of his life in the time machine, writing the book, giving it to himself, shooting himself, and starting the cycle again. The book is a manual about time travel, but it also offers advice on how such a traveler should live within or use time wisely. The main use of Charles's time is in thinking about his father and mother, but he begins visiting periods in his past in his time machine, watching his younger self interact with his parents. Eventually, he discovers that the book given to him by his future self is literally the key, because it holds a key that unlocks a box that his mother gave him, inside of which his father left clues to where he went in time. This inspires Charles to realize that he can break out of his time loop through the power of his mind and memory. He does so and rescues his father from the past time in which he is stuck. As the novel ends, it looks as if the family has a chance to regain normalcy and move forward with a better understanding of how to cope with the difficulties of life by facing the problems of the past with courage and honesty.

                       Praise

“Glittering layers of gorgeous and playful meta-science-fiction. . . . Like [Douglas] Adams, Yu is very funny, usually proportional to the wildness of his inventions, but Yu’s sound and fury conceal (and construct) this novel’s dense, tragic, all-too-human heart. . . . Yu is a superhero of rendering human consciousness and emotion in the language of engineering and science. . . . A complex, brainy, genre-hopping joyride of a story, far more than the sum of its component parts, and smart and tragic enough to engage all regions of the brain and body.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Compulsively rereadable. . . . Hilarious. . . . Yu has a crisp, intermittently lyrical prose style, one that’s comfortable with both math and sadness, moving seamlessly from delirious metafiction to the straight-faced prose of instruction-manual entries. . . . [The book itself] is like Steve Jobs’ ultimate hardware fetish, a dreamlike amalgam of functionality and predetermination.”
—Los Angeles Times

“Douglas Adams and Philip K. Dick are touchstones, but Yu’s sense of humor and narrative splashes of color–especially when dealing with a pretty solitary life and the bittersweet search for his father, a time travel pioneer who disappeared–set him apart within the narrative spaces of his own horizontal design. . . . A clever little story that will be looped in your head for days. No doubt it will be made into a movie, but let’s hope that doesn’t take away the heart.”
—Austin Chronicle

“If 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.”
—NPR

“How to Live Safely is a book likely to generate a lot of discussion, within science fiction and outside, infuriating some readers while delighting many others.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“An extraordinary work. . . . I read the entire book in one gulp.”
—Chris Wallace, GQ

“A great Calvino-esque thrill ride of a book.”
—The Stranger

“Science and metaphor get nice and cozy in Charles Yu’s How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. The novel joins the likes of Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story and Jillian Weise’s The Colony, fiction that borrows the tropes of sci-fi to tell high-tech self-actualization narratives.”
—Portland Mercury

“A brainy reverie of sexbots, rayguns, time travel and Buddhist zombie mothers. . . . Packed with deft emotional insight.”
—The Economist

“A funny, funny book, and it’s a good thing, too; because at its heart it’s a book about loneliness, regret, and the all-too-human desire to change the past.”
—Tor.com

“A keenly perceptive satire. . . . Yu’s novel is also a meditation on the essentials of human life at its innermost point.. . . Campy allusions to the original Star Wars trilogy, a cityscape worthy of the director’s cut of Blade Runner and a semi-coherent vocabulary of techno-jargon cement these disparate elements into a brilliant send-up of science fiction. . . . Perhaps it would be better to think of the instructional units of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe in terms of the chapters of social commentary which John Steinbeck placed into the plot structure of The Grapes of Wrath.”
—California Literary Review

“How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is the rare book I pick up to read the first several pages, then decide to drop everything and finish at once. Emotionally resonant, funny, and as clever as any book I have read all year, this debut novel heralds the arrival of a talented young writer unafraid to take chances.”
—largehearted boy

“A wild and inventive first novel . . . has been compared to the novels of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and Jonathan Lethem, and the fact that such comparisons are not out of line says everything necessary about Yu’s talent and future.”
—Portland Oregonian

“Bends the rules of time and literary convention.”
—Seattle Weekly

“Getting stuck with Yu in his time loop is like watching an episode of Doctor Who as written by the young Philip Roth. Even when recalling his most painful childhood moments, Yu makes fun of himself or pulls you into a silly description of fake physics experiments. In this way, he delivers one of the most clear-eyed descriptions of consciousness I’ve seen in literature: It’s full of self-mockery and self-deception, and yet somehow manages to keep its hands on the wheel, driving us forward into an unknowable future. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is intellectually demanding, but also emotionally rich and funny. . . . It’s clearly the work of a scifi geek who knows how to twist pop culture tropes into melancholy meditations on the nature of consciousness.”
—io9

“Funny [and] moving. . . . Charles Yu’s first novel is getting ready for lift-off, and it more than surpasses expectations which couldn’t be any higher after he was given the 5 Under 35 Award . . . How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe is one of the trippiest and most thoughtful novels I’ve read all year, one that begs for a single sit-down experience even if you’re left with a major head rush after the fact for having gulped down so many ideas in a solitary swoop. . . . Yu’s literary pyrotechnics come in a marvelously entertaining and accessible package, featuring a reluctant, time machine-operating hero on a continual quest to discover what really happened to his missing father, a mysterious book possibly answering all, and a computer with the most idiosyncratic personality since HAL or Deep Thought. . . . Like the work of Richard Powers . . . How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe fuses the scientific and the emotional in ways that bring about something new.”
—Sarah Weinman, The Daily Beast

“One of the best novels of 2010. . . . It is a wonderfully stunning, brilliant work of science fiction that goes to the heart of self-realization, happiness and connections. . . . Yu has accomplished something remarkable in this book, blending science fiction universes with his own, alternative self’s life, in a way, breaking past the bonds of the page and bringing the reader right into the action. . . . Simply, this is one of the absolute best time travel stories . . . even compared to works such as The Time Machine by H.G. Wells or the Doctor Who television series.”
—SF Signal

“Within a few pages I was hooked. . . . There are times when he starts off a paragraph about chronodiegetics that just sounds like pseudo-scientific gibberish meant to fill in some space. And then you realize that what he’s saying actually makes sense, that he’s actually figured out something really fascinating about the way time works, about the way fiction works, and the “Aha!” switch in your brain gets flipped. That happened more than once for me. There are so many sections here and there that I found myself wanting to share with somebody: Here—read this paragraph! Look at this sentence! Ok, now check this out!”
—GeekDad, Wired.com

“In this debut novel, Charles Yu continues his ambitious exploration of the fantastic with a whimsical yet sincere tribute to old-school science fiction and quantum physics. . . . A fascinating, philosophical and disorienting thriller about life and the context that gives it meaning.”
—Kirkus, starred review

“With Star Wars allusions, glimpses of a future world, and journeys to the past, as well as hilarious and poignant explanations of “chronodiegetics,” or the “theory of the nature and function of time within a narrative space,” Yu, winner of the National Book Foundation’s 5 under 35 Award, constructs a clever, fluently metaphorical tale. A funny, brain-teasing, and wise take on archetypal father-and-son issues, the mysteries of time and memory, emotional inertia, and one sweet but bumbling misfit’s attempts to escape a legacy of sadness and isolation.”
—Booklist

“This book is cool as hell. If I could go back in time and read it earlier, I would.”
—Colson Whitehead, author of Sag Harbor

“Charles Yu is a tremendously clever writer, and How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is marvelously written, sweetly geeky, good clean time-bending fun.”
—Audrey Niffenegger, author of Her Fearful Symmetry and The Time Traveler’s Wife

“Funny, touching, and weirdly beautiful. This book is awesome.”
—Nick Harkaway, author of The Gone-Away World

“How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is that rare thing—a truly original novel. Charles Yu has built a strange, beautiful, intricate machine, with a pulse that carries as much blood as it does electricity.”
—Kevin Brockmeier, author of The View from the Seventh Layer and The Brief History of the Dead

“Poignant, hilarious, and electrically original. Bends time, mind, and genre.”
—David Eagleman, author of Sum

And holy crap this is well made. I hear it gets better in the later seasons, too! It makes me upset that we don't have more science fiction television of this quality, but also glad that I finally found this show. Hopefully I can get caught up quickly and join in with the rest of the world for the season finale. How do you all feel about The Expanse and other contemporary science fiction television?

Sleeping Giants is a science fiction novel by Sylvain Neuvel in which an unknown interviewer and scientist Rose Franklin attempt to decipher the alien origins and purpose of a giant robotic weapon. Told by way of case files – transcripts, diary entries, and other documents – the novel spans the course of four years, beginning with a prologue set when Rose is 11 years old.

When the novel begins, Rose takes out the bike she has received for her birthday, only to fall into a massive hole near Deadwood, South Dakota, in which is a giant hand. Seventeen years later, Rose now spearheads the effort to determine what the hand is, and to crack the code of the symbols featured on it. At the same time, two American pilots, Kara Resnik and Ryan Mitchell, testing Syrian airspace for radiation, return over Turkey when another body part appears beneath them, activated by the radiation they trail. Because of this, Kara and Ryan are tasked to be a part of Rose’s team. A French-Canadian linguist, Vincent Couture, is brought on board to help decipher the symbols. Scouring the globe, the team completes the robot.

The team is watched over, protected by, and instigated by an unknown interviewer (to whom the files belong and who appears in most of the files speaking to the members of the team). The interviewer has immense power that spans presidential administrations, and indeed he only has two equals: the sitting president and an unidentified subject whom he meets in Washington D.C. The unidentified subject turns out to be the descendant of alien soldiers who came to Earth as the most far-flung colony of their alien empire, to guard it against the threat of invasion using giant war machines. When the danger had passed, they left one robot behind in pieces so that when humanity advanced enough technologically, it could operate the robot on its own and prove worthy of alien contact – or destruction. The ability to master the atom for war is the sign of humanity’s advancement, and progress by the 2010s has allowed the robot to be found, reassembled, and activated, for it uses radioactive material as fuel. The aliens are now watching to see what becomes of the robot they left behind.

Kara and Ryan become pilots for the robot, but they are unable to make much progress because the robot only responds to Kara. When Vincent attempts to operate the robot, he is successful, meaning he and Kara are both descendants of the aliens – the only ones who can operate alien machinery because of their genetics. As a result, Greek geneticist Alyssa Papantoniou is brought on board to study Vincent and Kara. But a testing accident on the robot destroys part of Denver International Airport, kills hundreds (seemingly including Rose), and exposes the top secret project to the world. The United States then goes public with the truth about the robot, and sinks it in the Puerto Rico Trench so no country may harness its destructive power. Secretly, the interviewer oversees a consortium of nations other than America which buy into a project to recover the robot.

The new secret project is overseen by Alyssa. But when the project is exposed because of Alyssa’s incompetence, the United States must intervene – now holding the moral high ground – to take custody of the robot – with everything happening at the workings of the interviewer. The United States then gifts the robot to the UN to form the Earth Defense Corps, a multinational effort to prepare for potential alien invasion. As the novel ends, in an epilogue, Rose wakes up on the side of a road in Ireland, with no memory of the project and no memory of the past four years – though she does remember everything before.

So, i just rewatched the prequel trilogy and had soem thoughts, far removed from my first watching, and also after the new films, The Clone Wars, Rebels etc.

It comes down to this. If you don't buy the Anakin arc, it doesn't matter how good or bad the rest is, it all fails. And for many of us, we don't buy it, for several reasons.

• There is really NO foreshadowing in The Phantom Menace (TPM) that Anakin will turn bad. He's the blonde, ever helpful, committed to others all American good kid. Missing out on putting something in here was insane. Also, relying on the acting talents of a kid this young is rarely going to work out. I think the only thing they tried to do was show he had 'attachments' to peopel which was incompatible with Jedi-ism, but this wasn't greatly effective. It always seemed to clash with the emphasis on connections between peopel Obi-wan talks about in ANH.

• I don't find the relationship between Padme and Anakin believable. I mean, I don't think anyone does. Remember this is basically THE lever for his shift to the dark side. An awful script and terrible acting aside, I don't see how it was ever going to be believable. He had a boyish crush, she is interested in youngsters? There is no development fo their relationship to speak of, he's sold from minute 1 and she doesn't seem to have any journey to falling for him. Maybe he radiates a midichlorian pheromone? I don't see what we are supposed to think drove the relationship, even had the script, acting and direction been on point. And there were so many better ways to do it. Make them the same (ish) age when they met? Then you'd have a teenage crush as an ember they both carried that reignites later. There are many other ways, but it almost seems like they didn't try any of them.

• Anakin's dark side is tied to teenage against not to character traits. He's as emo as Kylo Ren would be later. The greatest danger to the galaxy is teenage hormones and the rage that comes from intractable acne. Again its exacerbated by the acting/dialogue/direction but still. His darkness is all driven by protecting people, but very selectively some people over others. And the other part is his entitlement, that he deserves more, which is really not compatible with the character in TPM. Also, he is selective what barriers he maintains. He never goes back for his mum but he is happy to get jiggy with Padme. If protection of those he loves is his main driver, why didn't this happen in any way between TPM and AotC.

• Anakin's seduction by Palpatine is silly. Its related to the point above. I guess if you don't buy the internal driver for his change, the external one makes little sense either. He preys on the weaknesses he exhibits, but the shift to him believing patent untruths is too abrupt. We aren't shown enough for it to be believable. Had we seen Palpatine messing with the minds fo others more directly, that might have helped, but we didn't get that. Again there were so many other ways to do this. If he'd fooled Anakin into inadvertently doing soemthign really bad, he coudl have then revealed himself and basically said that if Anakin fessed up then it would also hurt those he loved. But no its 'i have a vague idea of maybe stopping an unknown future threat to your weirdly inappropriate wife, pls go kill soem kids, m'kay?'. All we get is some iffy bad dreams, but again with no previous intriduction of Anakin as prophetic, thats not very convincing. Had that, say, been established earlier, it might have worked better. .

• Anakin's change to Darth Vader (suit and all) is too quick. I think they wanted to show the entombing of Anakin, and i get that, but they jumped right to the last stage. Had they shown essentially the v0.5 beta of the suit it might have been much better. Think the hilarious home made spiderman costume in the Toby Mcguire versions, ot the MNk1 iron man suit. It would have given us Vader but left for a sense of time between RotS and ANH.

• [ Added, forgot this before] - Anakin seems nothing like OT Darth Vader. The mannerisms, tone, style and feeling fo the two are hugely different. If you watch the end of RotS then the start of ANH, you get this right away. Again had you had the feeling the metamorphosis took longer it might have worked, but with the presto chango Vader makeover, its more jarring

So there are a gazillion other issues with the films. Some narrative, some continuity, many script, some racial, mostly all summed up as 'George Lucas made ANH accidentally, and peaked at that'. I will list a few in a comment below that occurred to me on this rewatch, but the core is this. The Original Trilogy is the Story of Luke. The prequels are the Story of Anakin. Had this worked better, i think we'd have been able to overlook the rest muuuuch more easily. There were missed opportunities all over the place. Maybe when they reboot the prequels :-D soem of this can be fixed up.

I'm a big fan of Peter Watts (Blindsight, Echopraxia) and Greg Egan (Schild's Ladder, Diaspora) and always looking for more to read. That said I find myself a little bit difficult sometimes as I'm not really a fan of massive scope stuff like operas or anything too dated. Granted I really haven't given either of the latter much of a chance as I think I just prefer tight, focused stories with a small cast of characters.

I recently started The Quantum Thief and am liking certain aspects of it but you're really thrown into a blizzard with that one.

Have any of you seen Solo? Possible spoilers if not.

Personally, I loved it. After having been dissapointed by The Last Jedi, Solo was refreshing, in my opinion it felt like a classic Star Wars film. I loved all the characters, including Ehrenreich's potrayal of Han which I fully bought.

Also the humour, compared to The Last Jedi, was far better. Whilst there weren't many laugh out loud moments, I was grinning throughout. And I far preferred it to the eye rolling cheesy jokes of TLJ.

And as someone who has watched the Clone Wars and Rebels series, I loved the reveal of that certain character.

Of course there were some cons, but they were relatively minor, in my opinion. The opening was a bit rough, and I got a bit confused at the end with the constant changing sides. And to be honest, I didn't really care for Marauders.

What did you guys think?

No spoilers here (since I'm not sure there is a mechanic for hiding them yet), but that was a fun episode last night.

Between this and Legion, there are some legit-strange visuals on tv nowadays. And it's not like they're strange in a horror or shocking way. They're just weird. I'm into it.