Description: "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 "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 "This book is cool as hell. If I could go back in time and read it earlier, I would." -Colson Whitehead, author ofSag Harbor "Charles Yu is a tremendously clever writer, andHow to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universeis marvelously written, sweetly geeky, good clean time-bending fun." -Audrey Niffenegger, author ofHer Fearful SymmetryandThe Time Traveler's Wife "Funny, touching, and weirdly beautiful. This book is awesome." -Nick Harkaway, author ofThe Gone-Away World "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universeis 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 ofThe View from the Seventh LayerandThe Brief History of the Dead "Poignant, hilarious, and electrically original. Bends time, mind, and genre." -David Eagleman, author ofSum "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 Universeis 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 Universefuses the scientific and the emotional in ways that bring about something new." -Sarah Weinman,The Daily Beast

Please Wait