The author of the widely praised debut novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe returns with a hilarious, heartbreaking, and utterly original collection of short stories.
A big-box store employee is confronted by a zombie during the graveyard shift, a problem that pales in comparison to his inability to ask a coworker out on a date . . . A fighter leads his band of virtual warriors, thieves, and wizards across a deadly computer-generated landscape, but does he have what it takes to be a hero? . . . A company outsources grief for profit, its slogan: “Don’t feel like having a bad day? Let someone else have it for you.”
Drawing from both pop culture and science, Charles Yu is a brilliant observer of contemporary society, and in Sorry Please Thank You he fills his stories with equal parts laugh-out-loud humor and piercing insight into the human condition. He has already garnered comparisons to such masters as Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams, and in this new collection we have resounding proof that he has arrived (via a wormhole in space-time) as a major new voice in American fiction.
Sorry Please Thank You: Stories
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“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. 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. 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). Overflowing with quasi-scientific jargon, the novel was exciting and funny and, at times, downright spooky, much like the quantum theories that Yu invoked. But most of all, for a story about a time travel mechanic, it was unfailingly realistic. . . . 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. Freed from this yoke, he takes off in every narrative direction with the glee of a school-kid released for summer vacation. . . . While Yu has drawn many comparisons to Kurt Vonnegut for his entertaining and adept satire, and to Douglas Adams for his intelligent and inventive silliness, Donald Barthelme seems an overlooked literary forebear. . . . As readers, we are all the better for Yu’s astonishing mix of wild imagination and meticulous restraint. Of the three polite phrases that comprise his title—Sorry Please Thank You—only the last is of true relevance here. No sorries, Charles. Just thanks.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
“There's some of the cerebral gamesmanship of Jonathan Lethem, the resigned sadness of Kurt Vonnegut, the Phil Dickian paranoiac distrust of consumer culture. But Yu's voice, sensibility and approach are unique, especially in the ways he wrings humor and pathos out of stripped-down syntax and seemingly passive protagonists . . . The stories deliver more than their fair share of bitter laughs, philosophical conundrums and existential gut punches.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“A mix of science fiction, absurdist humor and Beckettian monologue, with storytelling techniques that twist narrative into a computer-esque objectivism; think Donald Barthleme's strangest pyrotechnics in a Philip K. Dick or Haruki Murakami world . . . [Charles Yu is ] the computer century's heir to Philip K. Dick and Ray Bradbury.”
—Shelf Awareness
“Yu’s workman-like sentences are unexpectedly emotive, while also being almost always very funny . . . As with his critically acclaimed, much-adored 2010 debut novel, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, Yu’s new baker’s dozen of satiric stories tell of a future that’s really just an exaggerated present . . . Like the best science fiction writers, Yu provides seemingly gratuitous logistical information to mitigate any hint of farce . . . Yu is a master of the slow reveal. It sometimes takes pages to understand where we are and why, but as the chatty protagonists joke and confess their deepest pains, details accrue and outlines fill in. And when we are finally oriented, the universe he has created feels eerily complete . . . Imaginary lands become possible worlds; cunning tricks grow into game theory; playing pretend morphs into explorations of false consciousness. Each story in Sorry Please Thank You is staggeringly smart, and none feel like anything but entertainment. Cultish fans of the NBC comedy “Community,’’ this book is for you.”
—The Boston Globe
“I don't know that there's a better story-bending talent at work than Yu since the rise of George Saunders . . . If you take a longer view you can see that Yu's success has many parents, from the oft-quoted Stein, the tone of Hemingway and Beckett, Virginia Woolf's fanciful short creations (as in, say, the story "Kew Gardens"), Calvino's game-faced fantasies and the low-key but powerful satire of Kurt Vonnegut . . . a tour-de-force.”
—Alan Cheuse, NPR.org
“Lovely and heartfelt . . . A brilliantly manic ride . . . Yu has an undeniable gift for describing, in clean, economical prose, the mechanics of things that don't exist or are impossible."
—The Wall Street Journal
“Stand back. The lead story in Sorry Please Thank You, this spritely new collection by L.A. writer Charles Yu, has the title ‘Standard Loneliness Package’ and it announces that a sly, nimble fantasist with a speculative edge is at work here. [An] adroit piece of work . . . Experiment plus emotion, we don’t often find these two elements together, but when it happens, as it does in most of these stories . . . it makes for terrific reading for the heart as well as the head.”
—Alan Cheuse for NPR’s All Things Considered
“Charles Yu won us over with his weird, melancholy novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe and now he's back . . . [These] stories are psychological studies of neurotic nerds, struggling to stay alive as they fight liches and loneliness. They're beautiful, strange, and funny.”
—io9
“Yu’s bold, playful voice evokes a computer-era Donald Barthelme, but his stylistic journey into the vast universe that is the human mind is refreshingly distinctive.”
—Booklist
“Laugh-out-loud moments of strangeness artfully exist in a contemporary fictional structure . . . With this collection, steeped in originality, we get echoes of David Foster Wallace’s early collection, Girl with the Curious Hair. Like Wallace, Yu abandons the more self-serving, insular metafiction of the past 40 years for a fresher form. Using technology, pop culture, etc., he attempts to write fiction that can be best shared with readers, not just critics or scholars. Yu, in fact, marries science and literature . . . Characteristic of his work, Yu mixes the beauty of human emotion with the science fiction to invent highly original, highly entertaining scenes and stories. He poses questions of reality and existence. You first think you’re chuckling to yourself. Then, without warning, you‘ve got that ‘reaching final altitude’ feeling in your stomach—a sudden change . . . Yu examines what it means to exist now and, in his own way, what it will mean in the future. It’s almost as if these stories, through their science fiction and futuristic themes twinned with a humorous yet moving style, strive to reinvent what we know as metafiction . . . Yu follows Vonnegut and Wallace in this style of metafictional, literary pilgrimage”
—Paste Magazine
“Grade A- . . . Pick it up and kiss your weekend good-bye . . . The best comparisons, though it feels a little hyperbolic to say, might be made with Vonnegut’s more pessimistic novels, books like Cat’s Cradle, Deadeye Dick, and Timequake. With Sorry Please Thank You, Yu has achieved something rare: an aggressively imagined work of fiction in which the concepts (mostly) serve the characters.”
—Boston Phoenix
“Charles Yu's outstanding collection Sorry Please Thank You collects short fiction by the author who gave us the terrific How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. Yu's blend of literary fiction's style with sci-fi's wild ideas is beautifully realized here, especially in the moving gem "Standard Loneliness Package." One of the year's best collections in any genre.”
—The Austin American-Statesman
“Enchanting . . . Yu’s ability to assume widely diverging roles as a storyteller is dazzling . . . Those not bothered by diverse writing styles will find reading Yu to be an exciting adventure.”
—Library Journal
“Like his debut novel, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, Charles Yu's new collection of stories mixes humor and clever conceits with a perfect deadpan delivery . . . Sharp, crisp insights that will have you chuckling and shaking your head.”
—Los Angeles Times
“The author behind three of the most unusual books of fiction published in the past five years . . . Untraditional but weirdly glorious narratives that, for all their experimental form, end up carrying as much or even more emotional force as your original, more conventional vessel would have.”
—Poets and Writers
“In his new collection, Charles Yu applies his trademark winking, pop-culture-infused, sci-fi mentality to a series of short stories . . . Clever and cutting.”
—Flavorwire
“Whether Yu’s work is dark, thought provoking, humorous, or all of the above, it’s always compulsively readable.”
—Owl and Bear
“Looking for the next great voice in fiction? Young author Charles Yu’s short stories beg comparisons to Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams, but he’s funnier than both.”
—Men’s Health
“Entertaining . . . Like a friend who stops by unexpectedly with a bunch of mind-bending tales to share . . . had me laughing . . . go order a copy.”
—Geekdad, Wired Magazine
“Impressive . . . Charts eclectic territory, from a zombie in a megamart to a new pharmaceutical drug that generates a sense of purpose, and explores retreats from reality and emotion . . . [Am] amusing send up American consumer culture.”
—Publishers Weekly
“There's some of the cerebral gamesmanship of Jonathan Lethem, the resigned sadness of Kurt Vonnegut, the Phil Dickian paranoiac distrust of consumer culture. But Yu's voice, sensibility and approach are unique, especially in the ways he wrings humor and pathos out of stripped-down syntax and seemingly passive protagonists . . . The stories deliver more than their fair share of bitter laughs, philosophical conundrums and existential gut punches.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“A mix of science fiction, absurdist humor and Beckettian monologue, with storytelling techniques that twist narrative into a computer-esque objectivism; think Donald Barthleme's strangest pyrotechnics in a Philip K. Dick or Haruki Murakami world . . . [Charles Yu is ] the computer century's heir to Philip K. Dick and Ray Bradbury.”
—Shelf Awareness
“Yu’s workman-like sentences are unexpectedly emotive, while also being almost always very funny . . . As with his critically acclaimed, much-adored 2010 debut novel, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, Yu’s new baker’s dozen of satiric stories tell of a future that’s really just an exaggerated present . . . Like the best science fiction writers, Yu provides seemingly gratuitous logistical information to mitigate any hint of farce . . . Yu is a master of the slow reveal. It sometimes takes pages to understand where we are and why, but as the chatty protagonists joke and confess their deepest pains, details accrue and outlines fill in. And when we are finally oriented, the universe he has created feels eerily complete . . . Imaginary lands become possible worlds; cunning tricks grow into game theory; playing pretend morphs into explorations of false consciousness. Each story in Sorry Please Thank You is staggeringly smart, and none feel like anything but entertainment. Cultish fans of the NBC comedy “Community,’’ this book is for you.”
—The Boston Globe
“I don't know that there's a better story-bending talent at work than Yu since the rise of George Saunders . . . If you take a longer view you can see that Yu's success has many parents, from the oft-quoted Stein, the tone of Hemingway and Beckett, Virginia Woolf's fanciful short creations (as in, say, the story "Kew Gardens"), Calvino's game-faced fantasies and the low-key but powerful satire of Kurt Vonnegut . . . a tour-de-force.”
—Alan Cheuse, NPR.org
“Lovely and heartfelt . . . A brilliantly manic ride . . . Yu has an undeniable gift for describing, in clean, economical prose, the mechanics of things that don't exist or are impossible."
—The Wall Street Journal
“Stand back. The lead story in Sorry Please Thank You, this spritely new collection by L.A. writer Charles Yu, has the title ‘Standard Loneliness Package’ and it announces that a sly, nimble fantasist with a speculative edge is at work here. [An] adroit piece of work . . . Experiment plus emotion, we don’t often find these two elements together, but when it happens, as it does in most of these stories . . . it makes for terrific reading for the heart as well as the head.”
—Alan Cheuse for NPR’s All Things Considered
“Charles Yu won us over with his weird, melancholy novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe and now he's back . . . [These] stories are psychological studies of neurotic nerds, struggling to stay alive as they fight liches and loneliness. They're beautiful, strange, and funny.”
—io9
“Yu’s bold, playful voice evokes a computer-era Donald Barthelme, but his stylistic journey into the vast universe that is the human mind is refreshingly distinctive.”
—Booklist
“Laugh-out-loud moments of strangeness artfully exist in a contemporary fictional structure . . . With this collection, steeped in originality, we get echoes of David Foster Wallace’s early collection, Girl with the Curious Hair. Like Wallace, Yu abandons the more self-serving, insular metafiction of the past 40 years for a fresher form. Using technology, pop culture, etc., he attempts to write fiction that can be best shared with readers, not just critics or scholars. Yu, in fact, marries science and literature . . . Characteristic of his work, Yu mixes the beauty of human emotion with the science fiction to invent highly original, highly entertaining scenes and stories. He poses questions of reality and existence. You first think you’re chuckling to yourself. Then, without warning, you‘ve got that ‘reaching final altitude’ feeling in your stomach—a sudden change . . . Yu examines what it means to exist now and, in his own way, what it will mean in the future. It’s almost as if these stories, through their science fiction and futuristic themes twinned with a humorous yet moving style, strive to reinvent what we know as metafiction . . . Yu follows Vonnegut and Wallace in this style of metafictional, literary pilgrimage”
—Paste Magazine
“Grade A- . . . Pick it up and kiss your weekend good-bye . . . The best comparisons, though it feels a little hyperbolic to say, might be made with Vonnegut’s more pessimistic novels, books like Cat’s Cradle, Deadeye Dick, and Timequake. With Sorry Please Thank You, Yu has achieved something rare: an aggressively imagined work of fiction in which the concepts (mostly) serve the characters.”
—Boston Phoenix
“Charles Yu's outstanding collection Sorry Please Thank You collects short fiction by the author who gave us the terrific How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. Yu's blend of literary fiction's style with sci-fi's wild ideas is beautifully realized here, especially in the moving gem "Standard Loneliness Package." One of the year's best collections in any genre.”
—The Austin American-Statesman
“Enchanting . . . Yu’s ability to assume widely diverging roles as a storyteller is dazzling . . . Those not bothered by diverse writing styles will find reading Yu to be an exciting adventure.”
—Library Journal
“Like his debut novel, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, Charles Yu's new collection of stories mixes humor and clever conceits with a perfect deadpan delivery . . . Sharp, crisp insights that will have you chuckling and shaking your head.”
—Los Angeles Times
“The author behind three of the most unusual books of fiction published in the past five years . . . Untraditional but weirdly glorious narratives that, for all their experimental form, end up carrying as much or even more emotional force as your original, more conventional vessel would have.”
—Poets and Writers
“In his new collection, Charles Yu applies his trademark winking, pop-culture-infused, sci-fi mentality to a series of short stories . . . Clever and cutting.”
—Flavorwire
“Whether Yu’s work is dark, thought provoking, humorous, or all of the above, it’s always compulsively readable.”
—Owl and Bear
“Looking for the next great voice in fiction? Young author Charles Yu’s short stories beg comparisons to Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Adams, but he’s funnier than both.”
—Men’s Health
“Entertaining . . . Like a friend who stops by unexpectedly with a bunch of mind-bending tales to share . . . had me laughing . . . go order a copy.”
—Geekdad, Wired Magazine
“Impressive . . . Charts eclectic territory, from a zombie in a megamart to a new pharmaceutical drug that generates a sense of purpose, and explores retreats from reality and emotion . . . [Am] amusing send up American consumer culture.”
—Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Charles Yu is the author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, which was named one of the best books of the year by Time magazine. He received the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award for his story collection Third Class Superhero, and was a finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award. His work has been published in The New York Times, Playboy, and Slate, among other periodicals. Yu lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Michelle, and their two children.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
One of the most celebrated emerging writers of literary science fiction of our time, Charles Yu's magnificent "Sorry Please Thank You" is yet another remarkable literary achievement, demonstrating both the ample originality and vitality of his writing. Yu has breathed astonishingly new life into such time-honored fantasy, science fiction and horror tropes as zombies, space opera and Artificial Intelligence into his latest short story collection; one which will resonate strongly with fellow admirers of science fiction and fantasy as well as a more mainstream literary audience which recognizes just how astute and humorous Charles Yu is as an observer of modern society and its emphasis on science and technology. The opening story, "Standard Loneliness Package", is a witty post-cyberpunk tale of sharing one's emotions that reads as a hilarious cross between Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" and Gary Shteyngart's "Super Sad True Love Story". It's followed by the irresistibly funny "First Person Shooter" about a department store clerk thinking how he'll win the affections of a fellow employee while contending with a zombie obsessed in making her own "fashion statement"; Yu's zombie tale is the most original one I have stumbled upon in years. "Hero Absorbs Major Damage" chronicles the epic quest of one noble warrior leading a ragtag band of warriors across a desolate, often dangerous, computer-generated landscape. "Yeoman" is a hysterically humorous send-up of "Star Trek", describing a lowly crewmember's feelings as he finds himself tempting fate as the "expendable" member of a starship's "away team" as the starship hurls deeper into the "final frontier". "Designer Emotion 67" is a gung-ho market research "report" of a new drug developed in the middle of the 21st Century, and one replete with ample wit of some futuristic Madison Avenue advertising executive. While others have compared him with the likes of Douglas Adams and Kurt Vonnegut, Charles Yu is making a most persuasive case as the greatest living satirist in modern American fiction not named Gary Shteyngart; he is most certainly the finest writing in science fiction today.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
There were elements of Charles Yu's debut novel (How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel (Vintage)) that I absolutely loved, and yet it didn't hold together as a whole for me. I have no such reservations about this story collection. It is fantastic. With that said, I can't honestly claim every single story within it is a five-star read, but I'd say the majority of them are. (I really wanted to give this collection as a whole a five star rating, but I'm trying to contain my enthusiasm.) And they'll speak to the same fans of geek culture that enjoy books like Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, as well as Yu's own debut. I'm not going to discuss every story in the collection here, but will cherry pick some of my favorites.
The opening tale, "Standard Loneliness Package," plays up to the author's strengths. I'd describe it as, "very Yu-ish, with a soupçon of Shteyngart." It's the first-person account of an Indian worker in a new industry--the outsourcing of emotion. "An industry was born. The business of bad feeling. For the right price, almost any part of life could be avoided." Later, the worker relates: "Of all the types of tickets, this is the worst. Heartbreak. When I first started at this job, I expected the hardest would be physical pain. But it's not. This is the hardest."
In "First Person Shooter," a worker on the graveyard shift at WorldMart announces, "There's a finger in Housewares." This leads her colleague to the discovery and assistance of a most unusual shopper.
"Hero Absorbs Major Damage" takes place within the world of some sort of massively multiplayer online game, and it's told from the POV the leader of a group of characters on a quest. This artificial world is their entire reality.
The story "Open" is surreal, and much harder to summarize. This exchange on the first page will illustrate where the story starts, but I defy you to guess where it goes from here:
"We need to talk about that, " I said.
"Why? Why do we always have to talk everything to death?"
"The word `door' is floating in the middle of our apartment. You don't think this is maybe something we need to discuss?"
"Note to Self" is a written correspondence between selves in the multiverse.
"Yeoman" will appeal to fans of Star Trek and Galaxy Quest. It's told from the point of view of a "red shirt." I loved it!
As you may have gathered from these brief descriptions, most of the stories in this collection have very amusing premises, but it was "Designer Emotion 67" that literally had me laughing until I cried. the story is, in fact, PharmaLife, Inc.'s Annual Report to Shareholders for the fiscal year ended May 31, 2050. Specifically, it was a list of possible side effects to a drug that cracked me up, and rereading the passage again, I found it just as funny. I would love to quote, but I'll save it for you to discover on your own.
And the collection's final story is the titular "Sorry Please Thank You." It's a suicide note written on a napkin, left on a bar.
So, those are eight of the thirteen stories in the collection. They are speculative, poignant, high-concept, and very, very funny. Yu's characters are articulate and speak in delightfully snappy dialogue, and the caliber of his prose is very strong. Humor is notoriously subjective, but if the some of the things I referenced in this review resonate with you, I urge you to give the book a try. Charles Yu is a young writer to watch.
The opening tale, "Standard Loneliness Package," plays up to the author's strengths. I'd describe it as, "very Yu-ish, with a soupçon of Shteyngart." It's the first-person account of an Indian worker in a new industry--the outsourcing of emotion. "An industry was born. The business of bad feeling. For the right price, almost any part of life could be avoided." Later, the worker relates: "Of all the types of tickets, this is the worst. Heartbreak. When I first started at this job, I expected the hardest would be physical pain. But it's not. This is the hardest."
In "First Person Shooter," a worker on the graveyard shift at WorldMart announces, "There's a finger in Housewares." This leads her colleague to the discovery and assistance of a most unusual shopper.
"Hero Absorbs Major Damage" takes place within the world of some sort of massively multiplayer online game, and it's told from the POV the leader of a group of characters on a quest. This artificial world is their entire reality.
The story "Open" is surreal, and much harder to summarize. This exchange on the first page will illustrate where the story starts, but I defy you to guess where it goes from here:
"We need to talk about that, " I said.
"Why? Why do we always have to talk everything to death?"
"The word `door' is floating in the middle of our apartment. You don't think this is maybe something we need to discuss?"
"Note to Self" is a written correspondence between selves in the multiverse.
"Yeoman" will appeal to fans of Star Trek and Galaxy Quest. It's told from the point of view of a "red shirt." I loved it!
As you may have gathered from these brief descriptions, most of the stories in this collection have very amusing premises, but it was "Designer Emotion 67" that literally had me laughing until I cried. the story is, in fact, PharmaLife, Inc.'s Annual Report to Shareholders for the fiscal year ended May 31, 2050. Specifically, it was a list of possible side effects to a drug that cracked me up, and rereading the passage again, I found it just as funny. I would love to quote, but I'll save it for you to discover on your own.
And the collection's final story is the titular "Sorry Please Thank You." It's a suicide note written on a napkin, left on a bar.
So, those are eight of the thirteen stories in the collection. They are speculative, poignant, high-concept, and very, very funny. Yu's characters are articulate and speak in delightfully snappy dialogue, and the caliber of his prose is very strong. Humor is notoriously subjective, but if the some of the things I referenced in this review resonate with you, I urge you to give the book a try. Charles Yu is a young writer to watch.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The stories approximate the form of science fiction but are mostly an excuse to grapple with the question of what, if anything, can still have meaning when our world seems indistinguishable from science fiction.
Yu's answer tends to be: familial and romantic love, but only to a point. He book's opening story, "Standard Loneliness Package," gets that idea across with a wicked satirical backhand -- it's narrated by a young man working at an office in India whose employees' job is to experience painful emotions outsourced by wealthy first worlders. ("Death of a cousin is five hundred," he notes. "Death of a sibling is twelve fifty.") It's one of several stories in which the experience of life itself can be bought or sold or pawned.
Like certain other strains of science fiction, Yu's genre exercises occasionally succumb to the fallacy that a sufficiently clever premise has only to be executed -- that the text itself is secondary. The prose of "Sorry Please Thank You" is deliberately (or sarcastically) flattened often enough that when Yu raises its emotional pitch the results can come off as overheated by comparison. That's a pity, especially since Yu is so acutely aware of the potential snares of language. It may be just another pharmaconarrative product -- but it's still the best one on the market.
Yu's answer tends to be: familial and romantic love, but only to a point. He book's opening story, "Standard Loneliness Package," gets that idea across with a wicked satirical backhand -- it's narrated by a young man working at an office in India whose employees' job is to experience painful emotions outsourced by wealthy first worlders. ("Death of a cousin is five hundred," he notes. "Death of a sibling is twelve fifty.") It's one of several stories in which the experience of life itself can be bought or sold or pawned.
Like certain other strains of science fiction, Yu's genre exercises occasionally succumb to the fallacy that a sufficiently clever premise has only to be executed -- that the text itself is secondary. The prose of "Sorry Please Thank You" is deliberately (or sarcastically) flattened often enough that when Yu raises its emotional pitch the results can come off as overheated by comparison. That's a pity, especially since Yu is so acutely aware of the potential snares of language. It may be just another pharmaconarrative product -- but it's still the best one on the market.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Give me solid craft over shaky art
The line is not always explicit, but it's always there - the line between craft and art.
By "craft" in this case, I mean the ability to tell a story that draws in... Read more
By "craft" in this case, I mean the ability to tell a story that draws in... Read more
Published 2 days ago by Clay Kallam
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic
I loved this book, because there was so much in it and so much variance. The author does a great job at taking a stab at all the great genres in one fantastic book. Read more
Published 17 days ago by J. W. Mullins
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thank You. No Need To Say Sorry, These Stories Are A Pleasure
Sorry Please Thank You by Charles Yu is a collection of lovely short stories under the science-fiction/fantasy umbrella. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Brian E. Erland
3.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting mix
It has been a while since I've read sci-fi...these days I tend more towards the fantasy genre, but I read quite a bit of sci-fi in my younger days. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Luke Waygood
4.0 out of 5 stars
With his great talent for turning the weird into plausible, Charles Yu...
Rather than tackling every story in this collection from Charles Yu, I’d say that what matters most about them is their luminous style, a strangely plain way to tell things... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Jorge D. Cortese
5.0 out of 5 stars
This product
I love this product! It has everything I needed without any problems. It came at the time I was expecting it!
Published 3 months ago by Donna Cruz
5.0 out of 5 stars
great read!
This is a story collection that is very creative and imaginative! It's wonderful Scifi but without the pesky aleins. Loved the book!
Published 4 months ago by elliwell
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing, moving, brilliant, and utterly original
Charles Yu has written some amazing short stories but this collection is definitely his best one. With plenty of sci-fi and fantasy nods for those who enjoy that sort of thing,... Read more
Published 4 months ago by William Reese
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mixed bag of dark existentialist geek humor
Yu's "How to Live Safely In a Science Fictional Universe" was one of the most original novels I've read in some time, so I was really excited to read his first published collection... Read more
Published 4 months ago by J. Fuchs
4.0 out of 5 stars
Quirky and interesting
Chuck Yu is a new discovery for me. The title alone encouraged me to buy the book.
The stories take a whole new look at our techy world.
The stories take a whole new look at our techy world.
Published 5 months ago by CRM
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