How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel

From the National Book Award–⁠winning author of Interior Chinatown, comes a razor-sharp, hilarious, and touching story of a son searching for his father ... through quantum space-time.
 
Every day in Minor Universe 31 people get into time machines and try to change the past. That's where Charles Yu, time travel technician, steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he's not taking client calls, Yu visits his mother and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. The key to locating his father may be found in a book. It's called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and somewhere inside it is information that will help him. It may even save his life.

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Published Jun 28, 2011

256 pages

Average rating: 6.91

34 RATINGS

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FanSci

Sci-Fi and Fantasy themed book club! Alternates genre every other month. Meets typically on the 4th Monday of each month at 4pm PST.

Please let me know if you are unable to obtain a copy of the book, and I will do my best to work some library magic! 

Also on Facebook as "Emily's FanSci Bookclub!"

Ogden Lit and Libations

Ogden Lit and Libations is based in Ogden, Utah, and meets in person on the first Sunday of each month to discuss selected books. 

Social Science Fiction Book Club

Casual book club about the subgenre of science fiction that focuses on people. We read the books about technology's impact on humanity. Since 2019.

Community Reviews

LitterBug
Nov 10, 2025
7/10 stars
The metaphor was really interesting and I overall enjoyed reading this. I will say that I think it's not great to read this as an audiobook since it loses the image accompaniment, so if you want to read it try reading it with your eyes
Sonia
Mar 30, 2025
8/10 stars
Sci-fi but the author isn’t obsessed with telling you how smart they are. Instead, we get a fun story with a beautiful message
JollyJay
Aug 17, 2024
10/10 stars
Book in itself is a time machine. It is so clever, witty, original and creative, that the time just flew by while I was reading it. Tremendously entertaining.

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