{"id":3661,"date":"2022-05-03T12:23:39","date_gmt":"2022-05-03T12:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/?p=3661"},"modified":"2022-05-03T12:24:06","modified_gmt":"2022-05-03T12:24:06","slug":"yu-how-to-live-safely-in-a-science-fictional-universe-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wsf\/yu-how-to-live-safely-in-a-science-fictional-universe-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Yu, <em>How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe<\/em> (2010)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3662 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/312\/2022\/05\/9780307739452-us.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"324\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/312\/2022\/05\/9780307739452-us.jpeg 324w, https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/312\/2022\/05\/9780307739452-us-194x300.jpeg 194w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 324px) 100vw, 324px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>(post by Elizabeth Baker)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">I chose\u00a0<i>How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe<\/i>\u00a0by Charles Yu because it was in the Asian Science Fiction section at the Green Hand, and because there was a dog on the over. I\u2019m interested in Asian SF, and I have a special interest in diasporic Asian fiction. How do we live in a new place? What stories get brought with migrants, and what gets left behind?<\/p>\n<p><i>How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe <\/i>is a book about an Asian-American time machine repairman, Charles Yu who has spent almost a decade living out of his time machine, trapped outside of time and experiencing a mid-life crisis. In the background of his technician job, Yu is also searching for his father, who has been missing for years and who invented the first time machine. The conflict in the novel begins when Yu encounters his future self, who he shoots. This begins a time loop which Yu spends the rest of the novel trying to remove himself from.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 1rem\">This novel is Chinese science fiction, time travel, and very, very meta. It\u2019s also very, very good! It is beautifully written and it has interesting time travel logic. The novel concerns itself greatly with metaphors, but it also uses sharp humor to off-set the high-brow logic. Ultimately, the story is about a father-son relationship with immigration, science fiction, and a mid-life crisis in the background. I highly recommend it!\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0&#8211;Elizabeth Baker<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><strong>Yu, Charles.\u00a0<i>How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.\u00a0<\/i>Random House, 2010.<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(post by Elizabeth Baker) I chose\u00a0How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe\u00a0by Charles Yu because it was in the Asian Science Fiction section at the Green Hand, and because there was a dog on the over. I\u2019m interested in Asian SF, and I have a special interest in diasporic Asian fiction. How do [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wsf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3661\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/world-science-fiction\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}