Time travel stories have long been a staple of the science fiction genre. In fact, they are older than the genre itself. Washington Irving’s story “Rip Van Winkle” (1819), about a man who falls asleep and wakes up twenty years in the future is simply a time travel story under a different guise. A host of later nineteenth century works—for example Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888) and Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)— built on this same notion that time travel requires no advanced technology to work its magic. In Twain’s tale, all that’s needed is a blow to the head.
And then six years later, H.G. Wells published The Time Machine , and reduced all this commotion to a handy gadget you could keep in your garage or basement. I note that the first automobile manufacturer set up in England around the same time Wells published this breakthrough story. He simply took the notion of the modern transportation device and adapted it to traveling through a different dimension. Think of it as a kind of super-duper Tesla for Victorian gentlemen of leisure.
But these stories tend to avoid the prickly issues. What happens when you go back in time and kill your ancestors? Or what happens if you go back just a single day and destroy your own time machine? The very notion of time travel involves unsolvable paradoxes, and the genre persists only because authors pretend these contradictions don’t exist.
Unless the author is Charles Yu. In his quirky novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe , Yu confronts the paradoxes. Even more, he loves the paradoxes. He builds his entire story around them. You might even consider this book as a guide to dealing with the incongruities of genre fiction—or, in other words, an advice book that earns the title How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe .
One of the first pieces of advice given by our narrator, a genial fellow named Charles Yu, is very simple and to-the-point: “If you ever see yourself coming out of a time machine, run. Run away as fast as you can. Don’t stop. Don’t try to talk. Nothing good can come from it.”
Yu is an expert on such paradoxes. He works repairing time machines. His rule about running away from yourself was part of his own training, the first thing he got taught on the job. And it’s a useful rule, because people use these machines for the worst possible reason. Consumers are supposed to view time travel as recreation, but they always have other plans—which usually involve going back to change their own lives. In fact, a market research survey of science fiction characters shows that the most popular destination in time travel is (can you guess it?): the worst day of your life.
Alas, Yu doesn’t take his own advice. One day he sees himself coming out of a time machine. Does he run? Does he hide? No, not all. He is so irritated at this interloper from the future, that he takes out his gun and shoots his future self.
Okay, this isn’t exactly like killing your ancestors. Even so, this hasty move creates many complications from the standpoint of chronology and narrative. But I will give Charles Yu (both the author and the character) credit for one thing: they have delivered a plot twist I haven’t encountered before. What you do after the narrator gets killed in the middle of the story? Well, we are fortunate that the narrator’s earlier self is still alive, and is able to escape from the crime scene on his own time machine.
Our hero has now entered a deadly time loop. When he emerges from his time machine, he will encounter his younger self and get shot again, starting the whole cycle one more time—a pattern destined to repeat forever. This doesn’t sound like a promising storyline (although— attention Hollywood!—it offers infinite possibilities for sequels and prequels). Yu is not left without help in extricating himself from his time loop. In particular, he can rely on (1) a virtual reality dog named Ed, (2) a sympathetic computer operating system named TAMMY, (3) his manager Phil, a software construct that believes it’s actually a human being, (4) a mysterious gift, still wrapped up in paper, from the narrator’s Mom; and (5) a copy of the book How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe .
Our story is now like one of the locked mystery tales, but with all the usual ingredients turned upside down: the murder only happens after you leave the locked room, and the victim/ narrator needs to find a way of prevent it— although it’s already happened. Even Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot combined might struggle to work out the meaning of all this, let alone, solve the problem. But the scenario is perfect for the application of postmodern literary techniques, from metanarratives to unreliable narrators.
Yu tries to insert a coming-of-age story into this conundrum of a tale, and provides detailed flashbacks to the protagonist’s childhood. Yu (the character, not the author) wants to find his missing father, who disappeared years ago, running away from a life of failure and disappointment. This subplot is the least compelling part of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe . At a key juncture in the novel, Yu inserts twenty pages of backstory about the father’s career disappointments—a rambling interlude that is out of character with the tightly-constructed, quasi-experimental writing that propels the rest of the book. This lengthy excursion provides an emotional framework that helps guide the story out of its cursed time loop, but family drama is not Yu’s specialty (I am talking about the author now).
But the occasional soap opera distractions can’t undermine this fresh, exciting book. I can’t really claim that this novel represents the future of time travel narratives, but Yu has done, at a minimum, something that may be even harder. He has brought time travel into the present moment, both in his storyline and his mastery of the full array of today’s highbrow literary techniques.
Yu is not a prolific writer—and I fear he might be lured away from writing novels because of more lucrative opportunities in TV and film. But he is a major talent. And if the next phase in sci-fi is more complete integration into mainstream and experimental literary fiction, Yu has potential to play a decisive role as visionary and trendsetter. Only time will tell.
Ted Gioia writes on music, literature and popular culture. He is the author of ten books. His most recent book is How to Listen to Jazz (Basic Books).
“If you ever see yourself coming out of a time machine, run. Run away as fast as you can. Don’t stop. Don’t try to talk. Nothing good can come from it.”