Interview: Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

I was able to catch up with author Charles Yu during last month’s Comic Con in San Diego. In this interview, Charles talks about the genesis of his book, a few inspirations, and gives you an idea of what’s going on in How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.

Also of note, watch as Mr. Yu slowly slides away from the camera as the interview progresses. Curious…

So who is Charles Yu? If you don’t know him now, you should get acquainted. He was awarded the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award for his story collection Third Class Superhero, and he has also received the Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award. Want more? We’ve got more. His work has been published in the Harvard Review, The Gettysburg Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Mississippi Review, and Mid-American Review, among other journals. And now he’s turned his attention to the difficulty of time loops (and characters who share your name) with his latest book, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.

It’s a timely book, as we could be sucked in to a time loop any day now.

It’s a timely book, as we could be sucked in to a time loop any day now.

It’s a timely book, as we could be…whoa! See what I mean?

We’ll probably be doing more talking about this book as it gets closer to publication (Sept. 7th!), but for now—Mr. Yu, take it away!

About How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award winner Charles Yu delivers his debut novel, a razor-sharp, ridiculously funny, and utterly touching story of a son searching for his father . . . through quantum space–time.

Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician—part counselor, part gadget repair man—steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he’s not taking client calls or consoling his boss, Phil, who could really use an upgrade, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle of time, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and Ed, a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory. He learns that the key may be found in a book he got from his future self. 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 help him—in fact it may even save his life.

Wildly new and adventurous, Yu’s debut is certain to send shock waves of wonder through literary space–time.