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![]() ![]() ![]() “Yeoman” follows the imperiled final week of a crewmember on a Star Trek-like voyage as he grapples with a homicidally bored captain. Set in a video game world reminiscent of the 1980s arcade hit, Gauntlet, “Hero Absorbs Major Damage” is a geeky, tongue-in-cheek adventure tale about a hack n’ slash video game warrior suffering a crisis of confidence. Freed from this yoke, he takes off in every narrative direction with the glee of a school-kid released for summer vacation. In his new collection of stories, Sorry Please Thank You, Yu no longer constrains himself to the pre-requisites of realism - or, to be more accurate, the appearance of realism. ![]() But most of all, for a story about a time travel mechanic, it was unfailingly realistic. ![]() Overflowing with quasi-scientific jargon, the novel was exciting and funny and, at times, downright spooky, much like the quantum theories that Yu invoked. He took sci-fi theories and ran them through a sort of literary normalizer, applying ample wit, pop-culture references, psychological insight, metaphorical flair, and a vital sweetness (his young, isolated protagonist, in search of his father, even has a stray dog for a pet). In his first novel, How To Live Safely In a Science Fictional Universe, Yu conceived of Minor Universe 31, a universe filled with people widely, albeit unhappily, using time machines. WHAT CHARLES YU DOES VERY WELL - it is a long list, but this may be its most notable entry - is to create strange and disturbingly normal alternate realities. ![]()
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