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Saturday, July 05, 2008

William Sleator's books



It was telling when Orson Scott Card, upon finding that I had read many of his books and not just the Ender series, got so excited and asked, "So, you must like William Sleator's books a lot?" and proceeded to gush over Sleator's work, specifically Singularity. I acted a bit dense and tried to high-five Card who told me that he's not the "high-five kind." ooops! But, our brief conversation reminded me how much I DID enjoy all the books I read by Sleator, and how much I appreciate that he not only creates gripping plot and probing philosophical and moral dilemmas, he also really gets in science right (at least according to the theories of the time when the books were written.) My favorite titles by him are Singularity, for its illuminating explanation of black hole and singularity and for its protagonist's emotional and moral struggle after he realizes that he can age himself and turn the table on his superior and sometimes bullying brother; The Boy Who Reversed Himself, for its vivid depictions of different dimensional worlds and the protagonists' grappling with adolescence and romance; The Green Future of Tyco, for its dizzying time-hopping scenes and Tyco's realization of how a person's past shapes his future and how one can become careless with one's actions and turn out to be quite despicable; The House of Stairs for its chilling social experiment and exposure of the darker sides (and some brighter sides) of human nature; Among the Dolls, for its creepy depiction of neglected dolls and their revenge upon the careless girl. And I can't talk about Sleator's works without mentioning how much fun my students and I have had for years now when we shared the jokes (gross, quite often) and humorous events (highly exaggerated, quite often) in Oddballs -- short stories based on his family stories.

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