For author Charles Yu, "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," he said. This is the dilemma posed in Charles Yu's debut novel, "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe." Yu's genre-defying story of time travel is receiving critical praise for being a quirky mix of string theory, "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and Philip Roth. Yu's appearance at this summer's San Diego Comic-Con won him a slew of new fans and generated buzz for the book. "How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe" features a down-on-his-luck time machine repairman, living in Minor Universe 31. It's an alternate reality similar to our own. He's got a crush on his computer operating system, named Tammy, and has the great misfortune of getting stuck in a time loop.
