The Last Universe [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

William Sleator (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2005

Sleator's most diabolical science-fiction novel in a decade

William Sleator, of such classics as House of Stairs, Strange Attractors, Interstellar Pig, and Singularity, explores the strange, fascinating quantum world in this gothic sci-fi thriller. From their isolated house, fourteen-year-old Susan and her wheelchair-bound brother, Gary, venture daily into the tangled, sprawling garden planted by their late uncle and tended by a mysterious gardener. Overgrown with impossibly large plants and exotic flowers, the garden holds at its heart a hedge maze that hides a quantum secret, outside the laws of the macro world. And Susan and Gary may not return from the labyrinth unchanged. AUTHOR BIO: For more than thirty years, William Sleator has thrilled readers with his inventive books. His House of Stairs was named one of the best novels of the twentieth century by the Young Adult Library Services Association. He divides his time between homes in Boston and rural Thailand.

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Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-10 -Teenagers Susan and Gary live in the house that has belonged to the family for generations. Now Gary has contracted a disease that has him confined to a wheelchair and traveling to the hospital regularly for transfusions. Susan is unwillingly spending her summer vacation pushing her brother through the garden and woods of their peculiar estate. Gary has been reading about quantum physics, a subject in which Great-Uncle Arthur won an international prize many years earlier. He is also the one largely responsible for the creation of the garden and just possibly the maze that no one has ever seen except from one window in the house. Gary is convinced that his illness has somehow triggered a quantum event that is responsible for the bizarre changes he and his sister are finding each day. He also seems to be getting better after each visit to the garden and so Susan finds herself torn between her fear of it and her fear for her brother's life. Sleator is a master of suspenseful science fiction and that mastery is evident here. The action is slow at first, but as the garden begins to change, the pace picks up correspondingly. Ultimately Susan must brave the maze on her own when Gary is rushed to the hospital. The twist at the end is entirely logical (if anything about quantum can be) and entirely shocking. Well-drawn characters and a believable story will catch and hold Sleator's fans and make new ones. Another solid entry from a deservedly popular author.-Elaine Fort Weischedel, Milton Public Library, MA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Gr. 6-9. After a brief introduction to the uncertainty of quantum mechanics, the paradox of Schrodinger's cat, and the possibility of infinite universes, Sleator launches into a story inspired by these ideas. Fourteen-year-old Susan feels burdened by her parents' expectation that she will provide help and companionship for her older brother, Gary, an invalid who is wheelchair-bound and becoming progressively weaker. Exploring their large garden, they discover that entering the often-invisible maze at its center will enable them to travel to other times and even different versions of the present reality. When Gary insists that they search for a place where he is cured, Susan acquiesces, despite the warnings of her parents, the enigmatic gardener, and her own good sense. The three elderly relatives introduced later in the book seem sketchy in contrast to the other, well-drawn characters. However, the novel's strengths include a strong sense of place and atmosphere as well as a story with steadily mounting tension and an unexpected twist at the end. Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• ISBN-10: 0810958589
• ASIN: B000ENBP2K
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,747,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not his best, but still engaging, August 13, 2007

By 

kaduzy - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Last Universe (Paperback)

William Sleator's evident fascination with quantum physics and different universes is on display again in this novel, which (like Strange Attractors before it) deals with bifurcations in the timeline. In "Strange Attractors" the characters actually used a time machine to visit these alternate timelines. This time around, all it takes is one sick boy and a maze.

There are several problems with this book. One is its attempt to be "modern". Sleator evidently wants to reach today's youth by incorporating their technology into his new books. This one begins with his main character instant messaging her friend, and he writes their conversation out exactly as he evidently imagines a teen would write an instant message. Maybe it's unfair to peg him for this one, but to me the entire effort seemed strained. He abbreviated some things but not others, and it didn't sound like a teenager, it sounded like an adult trying to sound like a teenager. It was also frustratingly vague at times. He never gave any specifics about what illness the sick boy actually has, though it would have taken only a hour's worth of internet research to find a disease or syndrome of some kind that had the symptoms he needed for his plot.

I was very disappointed by the ending. There are so many promising leads -- the fascinating probability clouds, the ever-changing vases, the hints at the other worlds -- that I could scarcely imagine all the places he could take the book in the end. But instead of something really fantastic, the ending is very ho-hum, and the "twist" at the end isn't handled well enough to really be a shocker. It's also not particularly scientific, or logical. And it's frustrating that so much is left unexplained in the book -- his explanation of illness "triggering" the garden's quantum effects, for example, or even giving some hints as to how the maze was built in the first place. Did the garden inherently possess quantum properties, or were they brought there by some magic-like science? Even little things in this book failed to impress. Each chapter has a little maze at the heading, but the maze always stays the same. Since the maze in the garden changes, it would have been interesting to see that one change too, kind of like the chapter-heading pictures in one of Michael Crichton's books. He also has an "Afterward" in the book, and for the life of me, I cannot understand why it's even there, since all it does is repeat what his characters have already said about quantum physics in the book. It's great that he wanted to have a solid lesson on the concept for his readers, but I'm sure his readers were smart enough to understand it without a repetitive and frankly condescending "explanation" at the end.

Still, there's a lot of great imagery here, especially with the descriptions Sleator gives of the garden. It's almost as if he's really been to such a place. :-) And he does manage to create an atmosphere of creepy tension, as always. I'm just disappointed that the pay-off wasn't better. Overall, it's definitely not one of his best books. Check out "Strange Attractors" The Boy Who Reversed Himself and The Boxes for more dazzling examples of how this amazing writer can handle the concepts of time travel and alternate universes. It may not sound like it from this review, but he's one of my favorite writers of all time, and since I know what he's capable of, I'm inclined to be harder on him when he doesn't meet his potential. I know he still has great stories to tell, so I look forward to reading those.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars William Sleator, The Man Who Will Rule The World, June 4, 2006

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.:antiokus:. - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Universe (Paperback)

i first read William Sleator when i picked up The Green Futures of Tycho i fell in love, then i read the Boxes then i read this, this is the best book by William Sleator. Its creepy, it makes you think, its funny, and overall amazing. You learn all about Quantum Physics and fun stuff like that, so pick it up and read away

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A top winner, highly recommended, August 12, 2005

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Universe (Hardcover)

Susan has been afraid of the garden even before her brother became ill: now she must push his wheelchair into the garden daily to satisfy his sense of impending action there, and the strange formal gardens seem to reach out for them with its mazes and mysteries. Can they survive the impossible choices the mazes bring? Once again Sleator has provided older young adult readers with the unexpected, satisfying fantasy he's so noted for. Not one of William Sleator's many novels are 'alike' in theme, aside from the overall fantasy genre: all offer unexpected twists - and The Last Universe is no exception. A top winner, highly recommended.