How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

Yu, Charles

I realized a couple of years ago that not only am I not super-skilled anything, I’m not even particularly good at being myself.

-Pg. 10-

Most people I know live their lives moving in a constant forward direction, the whole time looking backward.

-Pg. 22-

You lie in your bed and realize that if you don’t get out of bed and into the world today, it is very likely no one will even notice.

-Pg. 181-

At some point in your life, this statement will be true: Tomorrow you will lose everything forever.

-Pg. 211-

...just like the concept of the ‘present,’ is a fiction.

-Pg. 216-

At its heart How to is a story about a family that uses the trope of time traveling to express how segregated we as humans are from the other humans; even - no - especially from our closest family members.  It comes complete with infinite causality loops, paradoxes, alternate universes, and all the other clichés you’d expect. 

Time travel stories have, I feel, become kind of annoying.  Star Trek has beat Time Travel to death, and popular movies like Back to the Future and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure have been pretty hard to beat. 

Party on, Wayne.  Wait that's not right.

And yet, I read How to in two sittings.  It’s a fun riff on the scenario and it’s an easy, fast read.

The thing most people will probably get a kick out of from this book is Yu’s breaking of the fourth wall that makes this a very meta-fiction.  It is also a book that seems heavily influenced by Douglas Adams’ The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

The main character’s father, one of the discoverers of time travel, gets lost in time, and the second half of the book deals with Yu’s obsessive quest to discover where/when his father is/was/will be.  The scenes with Yu’s mother/not-mother were particularly touching and played on the ubiquitous regrets that we all harbor over the things that we could have done better in our lives.  We could have been better children/parents/friends/siblings/spouses and to that end we will go through greater lengths to hide the pain we carry and delude ourselves with lies than we ever would to just try and be the people we want to be moving forward.  Much of the material dealing with Yu’s mother directly addresses the idea that the past is not ever truly gone as long as we remember... if for no other reason than the past continues to exist, literally, as bio-chemical processes within our own physical bodies.  Shame then, I say, that there is no known way for our species to foster a sort of selective genetic memory so that we are able to pass on to our descendants important information such as:

1. The proper way to handle that not-so-fresh feeling
2. How to cure a hangover
3. What “masturbate” means
4. Why did Daddy leave?

Just imagine all the awkward questions that could avoided through the selective transmission of genetic memory.  Let’s order the scientist to get to work on this immediately.

Oh, I just realized I got off topic.  How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is a good book.  Go buy it and read it.

Io9 Q and A with Charles Yu

@charles_yu

  

Dying of the Light by George R. R. Martin

Dying of the Light

George R. R. Martin

"Can they love without a word for it...?" Pg. 37

George R. R. Martin is a fucking beast. His attention to detail and his ability to meld natural organic worlds with advanced Sci-Fi Tech is unparalleled. His characters feel real, and the decisions that they make don't feel like they were made just to move the plot around... Everything just kind of flows.

Dying is set the same universe where many of Martin's other SF story are set. It's an amazing universe populated by dozens of sentient species, including offshoots of humans. Anybody who has had the chance to read the compilations of Martin's earlier works called Dreamsongs will be on familiar ground with Dying, but if you haven't you might find the book to be esoteric. However; the character development is strong enough to carry you over some of the rough patches, and some time spent studying the glossary at the end of the book will serve as cliff notes for information served up in other stories.

My only knock on the book is the thread left hanging at the end. Ugh. I understand leaving some threads loose... It only makes sense to do so in a book that is only one story - one part - of a greater whole, but the big question left open at the end of the novel is a shame. I am a huge fan of Martin, and I enjoy the fact that he routinely breaks the "Rules" that college creative writing teachers tell their students. 99% of the time he gets away with it, but Dying's epilogue is weak.

That said; Dying of the Light is a great read marred only slightly by a weak ending.