How To Live Safely In a Science Fictional Universe

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (2010) is a science fiction novel by American writer Charles Yu. Yu wrote the novel after merging two separate story ideas—one about a father-son relationship and the other about a man who keeps waking up in different universes. The narrative views the emotional tension between the father and son through the lens of quantum mechanics and popular philosophy. The novel was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 2011.

The novel concerns a time machine repairman, also named Charles Yu, who finds himself trapped in a time loop after he shoots his future self. He attempts to escape the time loop by resolving his relationship with his estranged father, who disappeared many years earlier when he invented time travel technology. The novel explores themes of fate and free will, identity, and generational trauma.

This guide refers to the First Trade Paperback edition of the novel, published by Vintage Contemporaries in 2011.

Plot Summary

Charles Yu is a time machine repairman who lives in Minor Universe 31, a speculative universe where the laws of time and space are generally interpreted through a field of science known as chronodiegetics. In this universe, time and language are inextricably linked to one another, enabling Charles to live on the fringes of time, a mode called the Present-Indefinite. He only ever reenters time to rescue time machine users who have traveled back to change the past. The past cannot be changed, only witnessed as a spectator. Charles’s only companions in his time machine, the TM-31, are TAMMY, a female computer personality interface, and Ed, a rescue dog.

After 10 years in the Present-Indefinite, Charles is called back to corporate headquarters by his manager, a computer program named Phil. Charles only agrees to return because the TM-31’s Tense Operator, which allows Charles to stay in the Present-Indefinite, has started breaking down. As a consequence, Charles has begun to remember details of his past, including his childhood home and his relationship with his father, the inventor of a time machine prototype who suddenly disappeared for unspecified reasons.

Charles arrives at Loop City, the capital of the universe. While waiting for the repair to finish, Charles continues to think about his relationship with his father. The young Charles resented that their family was poor and that his father could never buy him a toy set called the Chrono-Adventurer Survival Kit. Charles spends the night roving around Loop City. He visits his mother, whom he has placed in a commercially available time loop. Charles’s mother expresses her disappointment in the time loop, which sees her reliving a hypothetical dinner where their family is still together. Charles apologizes but is reluctant to explain his true reasons for being sorry. Before Charles leaves, his mother gives him a wrapped box she found in his closet.

Charles is late for his appointment with the hangar repair bot. When he reaches the hangar, he sees his future self stepping out of the TM-31. Panicking, Charles shoots his future self in the gut, but not before his future self delivers a message: “It’s all in the book. The book is the key” (89). Charles escapes in the TM-31 and soon finds the book his future self had been referring to: a part-autobiography, part-instructional manual entitled How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu. Charles simultaneously reads the future book and writes a new copy using the TM-31 computer. He realizes that the book can help him to find his long-lost father. He skips to the end of the book and is surprised to discover a blank page.

Charles is suddenly thrust into a Buddhist temple that exists outside of time. The temple is inhabited by an idealized version of Charles’s mother. Charles realizes that his father had been to the temple at some point after leaving the family. While trying to escape, Charles is rescued by another version of himself, a shuttle driver who urges him to own up to his identity as the writer of the book. This version of Charles drops him into an interstitial space called the father-son axis, where Charles and TAMMY can view memories relevant to Charles’s relationship with his father.

In the father-son axis, it is revealed that young Charles had helped his father to build the prototypes for the time machine. After several years, Charles and his father assembled a prototype that garnered the attention of the Institute of Conceptual Technology. They meet the institute’s research director, who asks Charles’s father to demonstrate his prototype. Though Charles’s father goes into the meeting filled with hope, he is frustrated by the prototype’s failure. Charles’s father becomes depressed, which results in him becoming more and more estranged from Charles and his mother.

The father-son axis teaches present-day Charles that his father did not really care for his family. With the end of the book and the time loop fast approaching, TAMMY reminds Charles that the book is supposed to be a key. Charles finds a key inside the book, which opens a lock hidden in the wrapped parcel Charles’s mother had given him. The parcel is revealed to be the Chrono-Adventurer Survival Kit, in which Charles’s father had hidden a diorama of their family kitchen at a specific point in time.

Charles realizes that the diorama is a message his father has sent to locate him. Charles also learns that in order to find his father, he will need to experience the end of the time loop. He returns to the hangar and accepts his fate, hoping to assure his past self that he will find insight in the time loop. He tells his past self that the book is the key and is subsequently shot, left to die as his past self escapes in the TM-31. Yet he survives. He reunites his family and moves on with his life.