Synopses & Reviews
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.
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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.
Table of Contents
SorryStandard Loneliness Package (page 3)
First Person Shooter (page 33)
Troubleshooting (page 39)
Please
Hero Absorbs Major Damage (page 53)
Human for Beginners (page 85)
Inventory (page 89)
Open (page 131)
Note to Self (page 139)
Thank You
Yeoman (page 155)
Designer Emotion 67 (page 173)
The Book of Categories (page 183)
Adult Contemporary (page 193)
All of the Above
Sorry Please Thank You (page 217)