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How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe – a short book review

On the SciFi front, I have just today finished reading "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe" by Charles Yu. I don't want to introduce any real spoilers, so I'll just insert here the text used as a preface to the book:

"When it happens, this is what happens: I shoot myself. Not, you know, my self self. I shoot my future self. He steps out of a time machine, introduces himself as Charles Yu. What else am I supposed to do? I kill him. I kill my own future."

The book, while thoughtful and philosophical with respect to the concepts of time travel (with some very different theoretical underpinnings than the usual fare), never to my mind fully capitalises on the possibilities of the subject matter it seeks to explore.

It does, however, contain a fairly unique, shall I say 'self-referential' twist which is quite original and used to good effect.

If you have ever read the classic "The Man Who Folded Himself" by David Gerrold, you will find some similar thoughtfulness here. "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe" however focuses a lot on the father-son relationship (between Charles and his father), and a certain hopelessness with respect to life.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Time Travel genre, though In my mind it is interesting but not one if the greats.