Afbeelding van de auteur.

Charles Yu (1) (1976–)

Auteur van How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

Voor andere auteurs genaamd Charles Yu, zie de verduidelijkingspagina.

12+ Werken 4,262 Leden 255 Besprekingen Favoriet van 3 leden

Over de Auteur

Fotografie: By Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17098066

Werken van Charles Yu

Interior Chinatown (2020) 1,381 exemplaren
Sorry Please Thank You: Stories (2012) 279 exemplaren
Third Class Superhero (2006) 194 exemplaren
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 (2017) — Redacteur — 142 exemplaren
Standard Loneliness Package (2010) 7 exemplaren
Yeoman (2015) 2 exemplaren
Hero Absorbs Major Damage (2015) 1 exemplaar
Fable 1 exemplaar
Systems 1 exemplaar

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The Time Traveller's Almanac (2013) — Medewerker — 559 exemplaren
Shadow Show (2012) — Medewerker — 362 exemplaren
Press Start to Play (2015) — Medewerker — 256 exemplaren
Robot Uprisings (2014) — Medewerker — 185 exemplaren
Dead Man's Hand (2014) — Medewerker — 159 exemplaren
Lightspeed: Year One (2011) — Medewerker — 138 exemplaren
The Decameron Project: 29 New Stories from the Pandemic (2020) — Medewerker — 109 exemplaren
The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2011 Edition (2011) — Medewerker — 93 exemplaren
Last Night, a Superhero Saved My Life (2016) — Medewerker — 60 exemplaren
Resist: Tales from a Future Worth Fighting Against (2018) — Medewerker — 56 exemplaren
Shadow Show: Stories In Celebration of Ray Bradbury (2014) — Medewerker — 51 exemplaren
Watchlist: 32 Stories by Persons of Interest (2015) — Medewerker — 49 exemplaren
Speculative Los Angeles (2021) — Medewerker — 40 exemplaren
Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms (2022) — Medewerker — 29 exemplaren
Drivel: Deliciously Bad Writing by Your Favorite Authors (2014) — Medewerker — 28 exemplaren
Avatars Inc (2020) — Medewerker — 13 exemplaren
Gigantic Worlds (2015) — Medewerker — 11 exemplaren
Pwning Tomorrow (2015) — Medewerker — 11 exemplaren
Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 100 • September 2018 (2018) — Medewerker — 9 exemplaren
Lightspeed Magazine, Issue 83 • April 2017 (2017) — Medewerker — 7 exemplaren
Polychrome Futures and Fantasies — Medewerker — 7 exemplaren

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The format of this novel as a metafictional sometimes hallucinatory screenplay is one I'm sort of surprised has met with as much favor as it has. It's not the most accessible, but it is super interesting and will give you a perspective you probably haven't spent much time considering before (at least I hadn't). The format of the novel as screenplay at first led me into confusion, wondering what was "real" and what was "fiction" inside this fictional world. Is his dad really a kung-fu expert as he's presented, or is that part of the Kung Fu Guy metaphor for making it vs. not making it as an Asian-American? And then realizing that the screenplay format reinforces the idea of the main character playing a role in his normal everyday life as an Asian American was an a-ha moment. As he says in a section in which the Asian-American experience is essentially placed on trial:

But at the same time, I'm guilty, too. Guilty of playing this role. Letting it define me. Internalizing the role so completely that I've lost track of where reality starts and the performance begins.


Which gets to how this novel is not just about how America treats and has historically treated Asian-Americans, it's about how Asian-Americans navigate and behave in this reality. How people perform the role expected of them, to what degree they are forced into doing it ("No one will hire you because you don't have an accent. It's weird.") and to what degree they choose it themselves. The main character's marriage falls apart evidently because he can't let go of that role that's expected of him as an Asian-American, and later watching his daughter he reflects on the choice he's made and how he hopes she'll be different:

Watching her is like finding old letters, of things you knew thirty years ago and haven't thought of since. How to feel, how to be yourself. Not how to perform or act. How to be.


It's a powerful and inventive novel, well worth its win of the National Book Award.
… (meer)
 
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lelandleslie | 82 andere besprekingen | Feb 24, 2024 |
I think I started this with more than a little suspicion as hesitation. I feel like I've generally approached science-fiction and fantasy from two directions; becoming wedded to particular authors with particular styles and devouring most of their oeuvre. But after being gifted this over the holidays I decided to try something different, and I'm certainly grateful.

I think I'd mostly thought of the science-fiction and fantasy I'd read as escapist and only incidentally interesting literarily or with relevance to the present. Favourites such as [b:Hyperion|77566|Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1)|Dan Simmons|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1405546838s/77566.jpg|1383900] or [b:Red Mars|77507|Red Mars (Mars Trilogy, #1)|Kim Stanley Robinson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1440699787s/77507.jpg|40712] obviously have allusions, but they're not necessarily the focus and the setting is just as important. A lot of these stories, by contrast, have less to worry about in terms of worldbuilding, in terms of keeping you engaged for a multi-volume epic, and so they can play more directly with ideas. I think I appreciate this a great deal, because though not every idea resonates it's refreshing not to be reading genre fiction as fiction for the sake of being in or appealing to a genre, but fiction that uses the genre as a means to an end. I always described what I got out of SF/fantasy this way, but I think I can say it more confidently now!

I'll walk through some in the collection I have relatively cogent thoughts on:

The Witch of Orion Waste and the Boy Knight by E. Lily Yu absolutely nailed its tone, for me. I want to read this out loud at some point, to listen to it. It skewers the tropes of fairytale in a way I hadn't seen before, not just saying "what if we empathised with the witch" but "what does it mean to be a witch in fairytale?" Thought-provoking and enjoyable.

Openness by Alexander Weinstein is one I wish was longer. Exploring the consequences of the secrets and layers and technology dependence his characters have demanded a relatively swift resolution in short-story, but (and my worldbuilder is leaking) could be an amazing setting for longer drama.

Vulcanization by Nisi Shawl made me want to read more alternate-history fiction. It's easy to forget and hard to imagine the minds of colonisers of the time, and if anything I think Shawl's portrayal misses some of the likely lack of conscience/banality of the perpetrators, which might be scarier in hindsight.

The Venus Effect by Joseph Allen Hill really had me questioning at first. I think I had a tendency to view metafiction as somehow easier than the regular kind, because you relinquish some of the need to allow the reader to draw their own interpretations. But what you gain, at least here, is a unusually specific and revealing understanding of the patterns of stories of police brutality, and the ways they are left out as well.

In any anthology there will be some stories you like more than others, but at least I felt exposed to more niches in SF and fantasy than I had been previously, and enjoyed almost all of the stories. Excited to follow up on some of those leads!
… (meer)
 
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Zedseayou | 5 andere besprekingen | Jan 30, 2024 |
Liked but did not love this one.

Some really sad and beautiful passages, a little confusing at times, often funny.

I wish I had just settled in and read it at once instead of in spurts because I think I lost a little reading it the way I did.
 
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hmonkeyreads | 82 andere besprekingen | Jan 25, 2024 |
Sometimes, an author just tries to be too "cute" in their concept or execution. In my opinion, Yu did that in both ways with [b:How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe|7726420|How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe|Charles Yu|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1279820784s/7726420.jpg|10491121]. I grew impatient with the extended musings. And much of the story felt so autobiographical that I felt embarrassed for Yu's family (which is a left-handed compliment to his writing ability, though). All that said, I do have friends whose tastes are such that I could recommend the book to them.… (meer)
 
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Treebeard_404 | 133 andere besprekingen | Jan 23, 2024 |

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Statistieken

Werken
12
Ook door
26
Leden
4,262
Populariteit
#5,894
Waardering
½ 3.6
Besprekingen
255
ISBNs
55
Talen
8
Favoriet
3

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