william sleator (young adult sci fi)

did anyone else read books by this dude as a kid? i have pretty vivid memories of these four:

Interstellar Pig (1984)
Singularity (1985)
The Boy Who Reversed Himself (1986)
The Duplicate (1988)

especially the first two. interstellar pig (!) was like "whoa board game with murderous aliens come to life, cool", but singularity had some pretty cool & dark time-travel implications (a kid finds a bomb shelter-like shed where time moves really quickly, and holes up in there by himself for a few years so that he can grow up fast). good start sf, in my memory.

i guess interstellar pig was pretty dark for YA lit too:

While snooping through Zena's underwear drawer, Barney finds a manuscript written by Captain Lantham—the same Captain who had built the house that Barney and his parents were renting—telling of the event that caused his brother to go crazy. At sea, the Captain rescued a man floating in the ocean, described as having a "leathery, greenish, reptilian hide" due to sunburn and a "swollen contusion", "yellow and filmed with slime" on his forehead.[1] Insisting that the man is the Devil, the Captain's brother strangles him—and in punishment, is keelhauled. Although he survives, his mind is damaged due to the oxygen deprivation, and he spends the rest of his life locked in his room (which later became Barney's bedroom), scratching patterns into the wooden walls and clinging to the strange trinket he had taken from the murdered man's corpse.

that was definitely my first exposure to keelhauling (not one of many).

You think Interstellar Pig is disturbing? Try House of Stairs. Or, if you can stomach it, The Green Futures of Tycho, the most upsetting kid's book I read when I was a kid.

those sound pretty familiar too

'Brother in the Land' by Robert(?) Swindells is a VERY upsetting YA sci-fi book too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_in_the_Land

maybe i should have made this thread about really disturbing YA books

I mean, seriously, those who have not read The Green Futures of Tycho have no right to talk about "dark time-travel implications."

'brother in the land' sounds crazy, like a YA version of 'the road'.

what happens in green futures of tycho?

this dude came to my school library to talk to us about writing in eighth grade. never read any of his books tho.

Loved Interstellar Pig as a kid. I read a bunch of his other books but don't remember them as well. Is Singularity the one where the main character has a crush on his cousin? I remember thinking that was gross.

House of Stairs is his masterpiece.

I've read a lot of these and none touch its subversive brilliance.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder is tops too.

Dude thx for starting this thread as I read most of this dude's books as a kid and he was big in my understanding of what sf was for a long time. Also as a young (and continuing) insomniac I really latched on to Singularity. I often imagined that at 4am while everyone around me slept and the night seemed to go on for years, I was actually stuck in some time hole.

Read Green Futures of Tycho, Interstellar Pig, and the Duplicate, of which I think The Duplicate is the creepiest, with Green Futures in a close second. I don't really remember Interstellar Pig all that clearly - but The Duplicate is great. Would love to re-read these...

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/sleator/www/billy/pig-low.jpg

This is the edition that I used to check out of the library -- I did so more than once. That crazy swordfish-lookin' guy with the round belly was my favorite character in the book, for some reason. Now I can't remember his name though.

"Minutes before his home is destroyed, Barney concocts a plan to pass the Piggy off to another player convincingly enough so that it won't arouse suspicion. Once the Piggy is in the hands of the carnivorous lichen colony, they board their spaceship home, drawing off the other alien players. Barney is left to think of an explanation for the wrecked house and clean up the debris."

(SPOILER ALERT)

It started as a game.
It ended in a nightmare.

I just found a cover for Singularity that says "it's not just a playhouse -- it's a portal into terror." So your theory is confirmed.

Just pulled a few off the shelf. Tag lines follow:

RUN: A gripping story of three teenagers, flung together by chance in an isolated house, facing a building climax of fear in very individual ways.

<<REWIND: It's not often you get to watch your own funeral.

OTHERS SEE US: Jared has the power to read minds -- and it's driving him out of his mind.

I read everything I could find when I was young. Singularity is totally magnificent. I also remember really liking The Boy Who Reversed Himself.

Had no idea there were so many awesome-sounding '80s ones I haven't read. Will be getting these.

the board game as described in interstellar pig sounds awesome. it kind of ruined me for actual board games. not just the evil aliens coming to life and destroying the vacation house thing, the game itself. would totally play.

http://www.tycho.org/JPEGs/gfot-cover2.jpg

Great art, too. If I remember right, in both Duplicate and Green Futures, it's repeated use of the magic technology that causes things to unravel. When he first visits the future, things are weirdly different but okay - gradually as he keeps returning things become more and more dystopian, and it dawns on him that it's HIM who's making things get worse...freaky.

I need to read Green Futures of Tycho!!!

Rewind sounds bangin'. You know, Singularity is pretty magnificent. Remember that one part where the twin dudes are at their mysterious uncle's house or whatever, & he has all these freaky-ass improbably animal skeletons around, & people are like "oh he's an eccentric hobbyist, he makes those by gluing different animal skeletons together"? But then it turns out the skeletons are actually from crazy space animals that come through the singularity in the shed? That part is creeeeeeeepy.

"improbable," that is.

ha i just had a memory of the hair standing up on my arms

at reading that part

good thread guys thx.

i know i make fun of laurel for reading YA stuff but i should really re-read singularity and maybe house of stairs to see how they hold up (or maybe i shouldn't).

You know what else was creepy, was that one part in Interstellar Pig where the young protagonist finds a mysterious pattern of scratches on the frame surrounding his bedroom window! & at first he thinks it's because that dude who went crazy due to oxygen deprivation lived there (or something?), & he was just clawing at stuff like a madman! But then young protagonist realizes that the scratches are NOT RANDOM! They're pointing toward a specific spot on the island that the window looks out on! IS THERE A MYSTERIOUS SECRET BURIED AT THAT SPOT? So he has to, like, put tape on the window to pinpoint the exact spot the scratches are pointing toward.

ooh, that is creepy.

i know i read one of those, but i can't remember if it was the duplicate or singularity.

Also that whole weird backstory in Singularity about how the townspeople would find cows all emaciated & dead, & they thought it was because someone had committed witchcraft against them, but it turns out that the cows had actually STARVED TO DEATH by wandering into the shed! (Because the shed SLOWS DOWN TIME.) The cows got locked in there overnight.

wow, I read The Boy Who Reversed himself as a kid and it stuck with me, in a vague sort of way, but I could never remember the name or the author! I remember it being really freaky. I guess I need to go to the library tomorrow.

You guys know that there's a sequel to Interstellar Pig now, right?

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0525469184.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars horror story, July 29, 2004
By sf reader (nj, usa) - See all my reviews
mr. sleator took all the old and new characters and changed them from the mysterious, playful, exciting first book to a slightly less interesting, depressing format on another planet. I especially did not enjoy how barney went from being a sweet innocent child in interstellar pig to a cold hearted killer in the sequel.I have questions as to how humans were previously on the planet of the crabs and by the end of the second book it was a little ridiculous that barney should be the only one to undersand the truth about the piggy seeing as how the piggy exhibits such consistent behavior.I felt that the book went from playful in the first book (PG rated) to the new book which could be rated R for violence. The ending was very violent and morbid. I really do enjoy mr. sleator's books since my own teen years but I felt the new book, although good, was too discordant from the first book.

The crabs seemed so nice to the Katie and Barney when they were really trying to make them fat so they could grill their bodies. The crabs give them a suite, like in a hotel, with two bedrooms, a living room, two bathrooms, and a mini fridge with free snacks; to calm them down and make them feel like they are at a resort and not a Death Palace. Every day Katie and Barney were fed scrumptious fatening meals that any child would love only to make them fat. Also there was a mud bath, steam room, and a pool to keep them busy, when it was really a way to gather their sweat for a sauce for when they cook them.

a resort and not a Death Palace

I was going to make "I have questions as to how humans were previously on the planet of the crabs" my new display name, but it was too long :7((

God, the general quality of kids' book cover art really took a dive, huh?

i LOVED "interstellar pig" ... i need to look into these others mentioned on the thread.

i remember being so disappointed as a kid that there wasn't *actually* an "interstellar pig" game out there, and vowing to make one before i got too old. the only thing i ever saw that even approached that level of coolness was an old game called "shadowlord" but it wasn't nearly as cool.

most disturbing kids books i can recall from my youth are "the giver" and "i am the cheese"

OK, must read some of this Sleator fella.

His prose isn't brilliant. And it's clearly not aimed at adults. But it is really worthwhile stuff.

I remember being creeped out by "The Green Futures of Tycho" too as a kid. It was just to so grim and melancholic for a kids' book, especially for science fiction, which I at the time thought was all about high adventure and cool ideas. (And a year or two later I read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", which shattered my previous conceptions about sci-fi for good.) Haven't read any other books by Sleator, maybe I should check them out?

Tuomas--I am ordering Green Futures from Powell's right now. Can't recommend House of Stairs highly enough!

I was just thinking about my "young adult fiction" favourites while reading the banned books thread, and this guy was one of my heroes, though I've only read maybe 3 or 4 of his books (can remember loving Interstellar Pig, Green Futures of Tycho, Singularity). Would love to reread them.

SF-ish YA fiction may be my favourite kind of book. Then again, secondary school kind of ruined me on reading for a few years, so this is the stuff I have fond memories of enjoying before English Lit teachers came along. Robert Swindells, John Christopher, Robert Westall, Nicholas Fisk (target audience younger than the others, but "A Rag, a Bone, a Hank of Hair" was darker and presumably for older kids than most of his books; I'd like to reread it, though, as neither I nor the school librarian realised that at the time and I read it when I was too young to make proper sense of it)...

John Christopher is the king. And John Wyndham's sort-of YA SF 'Chocky' is ace, too.

Got my copy of Green Futures of Tycho from Powell's. Excellent so far...

RIP :(

oh no

:-(

I still think about singularity about once a month or so, at least.

RIP and thank you for all the books :(

(I found out he was still alive last year after wikipedia-ing a bunch of my early-teens YA fiction heroes and he was the first who was still with us; considered a brief email of "hi you are awesome" but didn't, and now, well, maybe I should've)

refreshing myself on Interstellar Pig via Wiki and just hit a real hard stop in the plot summary:

When Zena, Manny, and Joe move into the cinder-block cottage next door, Barney is intrigued by their glamorous, exotic lifestyle. His fascination grows when Zena introduces Barney to their favorite pastime: Interstellar Pig, a board game in which the key objective is to finish the game with the Piggy card in hand.

Zena quickly briefs him on the rules: each player picks their character from a box of cards depicting different aliens. Every alien race has their own strengths, weaknesses, and IRSC (Interstellar Relative Sapience Code, with lower numbers favorable). When the time runs out, every home planet will be obliterated except the one belonging to the holder of the Piggy. Barney is amazed when the neighbors keep choosing the same character cards: Joe repeatedly picks water-breathing Jrlb; Zena always chooses Zulma, an arachnoid nymph; and Manny always picks Moyna, an octopus-like gas bag.

While snooping through Zena's underwear drawer,

wtf?