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.
*This ebook includes photos, illustrations, and a bonus short story, which add to the ever-expanding world of Minor Universe 31.
Photos and illustrations appear as hyperlinks in text.
National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award winner Charles Yu delivers his debut novel, a razor-sharp, ridiculously funny, and utterly touching story of a son searching for his father . . . through quantum space–time.
Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician--part counselor, part gadget repair man--steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he’s not taking client calls or consoling his boss, Phil, who could really use an upgrade, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a one-hour cycle of time, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and Ed, a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory. He learns that the key may be found in a book he got from his future self. It’s called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and he’s the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could help him--in fact it may even save his life.
Wildly new and adventurous, Yu’s debut is certain to send shock waves of wonder through literary space–time.
A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection
Who explores the final frontier? The ship has reached the last world. Beamed down from the transporter bay is the captain, the XO, the medic, the security chief, the ethnographer, and finally an unnamed yeoman, the narrator of Charles Yu’s mind-bending journey into the science fiction unknown. And the yeoman knows one thing, if he knows anything at all: the yeoman always dies.
In the tradition of Jonathan Lethem and Douglas Adams, National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 award winner Charles Yu presents a story of searching (not wandering) and the galactic limits of home, from the utterly original collection Sorry Please Thank You.
An eBook short.
With only TAMMY - a slightly tearful computer with self-esteem issues - a software boss called Phil - Microsoft Middle Manager 3.0 - and an imaginary dog called Ed for company, fixing time machines is a lonely business and Charles Yu is stuck in a rut. He's spent the better part of a decade navel-gazing, spying on 39 different versions of himself in alternate universes (and discovered that 35 of them are total jerks). And he's kind of fallen in love with TAMMY, which is bad because she doesn't have a module for that. With all that's on his mind, perhaps it's no surprise that when he meets his future self, he shoots him in the stomach. And that's a beginner's mistake for a time machine repairman. Now he's stuck in a time loop, going in circles forever. All he has, wrapped in brown paper, is the book his future self was trying to press into his hands. It's called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. And he's the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could save him.With only TAMMY - a slightly tearful computer with self-esteem issues - a software boss called Phil - Microsoft Middle Manager 3.0 - and an imaginary dog called Ed for company, fixing time machines is a lonely business and Charles Yu is stuck in a rut. He's spent the better part of a decade navel-gazing, spying on 39 different versions of himself in alternate universes (and discovered that 35 of them are total jerks). And he's kind of fallen in love with TAMMY, which is bad because she doesn't have a module for that. With all that's on his mind, perhaps it's no surprise that when he meets his future self, he shoots him in the stomach. And that's a beginner's mistake for a time machine repairman. Now he's stuck in a time loop, going in circles forever. All he has, wrapped in brown paper, is the book his future self was trying to press into his hands. It's called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. And he's the author. And somewhere inside it is the information that could save him.
This book explores how population mobility varies among the countries of Asia. While much attention has been given to international migration, movement within countries is numerically much more significant. Coupling innovative methods developed in the global IMAGE project with the contextual knowledge of experts on 15 Asian countries, the book measures and explains how people across Asia differ in the probability of changing residence, the ages at which they move, and the impact of these migrations on the distribution of human settlement within each country. It demonstrates how stage of economic development, coupled with historical events, local contingencies, cultural norms, political frameworks, and the physical environment shape human migration. By using rigorous statistics in a robust comparative framework, this book provides a clear understanding of contemporary migration in Asia for students and academics, and a valuable resource for policy-makers and planners in Asia and beyond.
This book provides a comprehensive guide for selective venous sampling procedures and the role of interventional radiologists in the care and treatment of patients with endocrine disorders. Disorders of the endocrine system involve an imbalance in the natural homeostasis of the hormones produced by the glands in the body. There are a variety of endocrine conditions that are characterized by either hormonal hyposecretion or hypersecretion. Percutaneous selective venous sampling is the gold standard diagnostic tool for the medical and surgical management of patients with a variety of such disorders. Selective venous sampling is a minimally invasive interventional procedure that interventional radiologists perform to localize sites of abnormal hormone secretion. Computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging are the most used diagnostic imaging modalities in patients with the suspected endocrine disorder; however, their specificity is not optimal, and identifying a culprit gland is difficult based on imaging findings alone. Therefore, the ultimate decision for management depends on the outcome of selective venous sampling. As these various venous samplings are increasingly performed worldwide, the collaboration between interventional radiology, endocrinology, surgical endocrinology, surgical oncology, neurosurgery, and gynecology teams is essential.
With limited literature on the topic, this volume fills the gap with in-depth coverage of selective venous sampling alongside the pathophysiology, epidemiology, clinical diagnosis, as well as medical, surgical, and interventional management of endocrine disorders. The book is divided into five parts: Clinical, Laboratory, and Radiological Diagnosis of Endocrine Disorders; Selective Venous Sampling in Interventional Radiology; Medical Treatment of Endocrine Disorders; Surgical Treatment of Endocrine Disorders; Interventional Treatment of Endocrine Disorders. Throughout these parts, endocrine disorders that require venous sampling are covered in depth: primary aldosteronism, primary hyperparathyroidism, Cushing's disease, hormone-secreting pancreatic adenomas, and androgen-secreting ovarian tumors. There is additionally an emerging role for interventional management in thyroid gland disorders, which is covered here.
This is an ideal guide for interventional radiologists caring for patients with endocrine disorders, as well as endocrinologists, endocrine surgeons, surgical oncologists, otolaryngologists, neurosurgeons, gynecologists, and nephrologists.
