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

There's a fine line between genius and madness - and I'm not sure where this book lies. It dives right in with some splendid technobabble:

The base model TM-31 runs on state-of-the-art chronodiegetical technology: a six-cylinder grammar drive built on a quad-core physics engine, which features an applied temporalinguistics architecture allowing for free-form navigation within a rendered environment, such as, for instance, a story space and, in particular, a science fictional universe.

Come on! That's great, isn't it? Very reminiscent of Jasper Fforde; using the power of science to dive into fiction. But, unlike Fforde, Yu never really commits to the conceit. There's some lovely stuff in the start about being a child and pretending to be in Star Wars, only to grow up fixing time-machines for the real/fictional Skywalker family. But it doesn't get developed much past that.

The writing is beautiful, with some lovely phrasing and heartbreaking prose mixed in with hilarious observations on the near-future.

Phil is an old copy of Microsoft Middle Manager 3.0. His passive-aggressive is set to low. Whoever configured him did me a solid.

Is it really a science-fiction novel? I think it was the author Debra Shostak who pointed out that most contemporary American fiction was about disappointing one's father. It's easy to read this book as an allegory for a child having a traumatic breakdown and retreating into fiction rather than facing up to the strained relationship they had with their dad.

Or, maybe, their dad did invent a time machine and now their child is cursed to travel "chronogrammatically" in search of meaning; both literal and figurative.

A fine brain-bender of a book.