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10th out of 12 books
—
20 voters
The Last Universe
Sleator is at his sci-fi best with this quantum thriller, now available in paperback
In this gothic, sci-fi thriller from a master storyteller, Susan and her wheelchair-bound brother, Gary, discover a mysterious maze in the vast gardens of their isolated home. Planted by a scientist uncle who disappeared long ago, the maze offers seemingly endless routes and choices. The te...more
In this gothic, sci-fi thriller from a master storyteller, Susan and her wheelchair-bound brother, Gary, discover a mysterious maze in the vast gardens of their isolated home. Planted by a scientist uncle who disappeared long ago, the maze offers seemingly endless routes and choices. The te...more
Paperback, 240 pages
Published
March 7th 2006
by Harry N. Abrams
(first published April 1st 2005)
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The Last Universe is a book about a magical garden that Susan's(the main character) Great Uncle invented. Susan has an ill brother and he thinks the garden is helping him get better.
The book wasnt extremely boring, i just thought it was really dumb. It hooks you in the beginning, but when you go on hoping for it to get better, you dont reach it until the end of the book.
The only reason i would tell someone else to read this book is for the end... my jaw dropped when i finally got to the end.
Ov...more
The book wasnt extremely boring, i just thought it was really dumb. It hooks you in the beginning, but when you go on hoping for it to get better, you dont reach it until the end of the book.
The only reason i would tell someone else to read this book is for the end... my jaw dropped when i finally got to the end.
Ov...more
For some reason, I expected something quite different from what I ended up reading, although I think that perhaps the result was better than the expectation. Rather than being a science fiction piece, the action centers much more around the mysterious garden and the characters in a rather spooky story, as the garden alternates between soothing and threatening. The internal angst of a teenage girl forced to care for her ailing brother creates an integral frame for the story, going beyond the ordi...more
A nice take here on the dilemma of quantum physics - that "if you can measure how fast an electron is going, you can't know where it is. In fact," as Sleator continues in his Afterword, "it doesn't even have a definite position; it is in more than one place at the same time. The most you can know is the probability of finding it at a certain location. Uncertainty is everywhere."
Sleator has written a good read here with a very human story of a girl whose brother is dying. Susan feels guilty for h...more
Sleator has written a good read here with a very human story of a girl whose brother is dying. Susan feels guilty for h...more
I've been on a sort of "youth book kick" lately...interesting since my kids are grown. Still, there are some very good youth and YA books out there... unfortunately this isn't one of them. I couldn't really get interested in this book, which "maybe" should have made me feel guilty (somewhat like Susan the girl/sister) since it's at least partly about a young man confined to a wheel chair. Shouldn't I feel for him? I suppose I should have...but I just couldn't get involved. I quickly lost interes...more
While I enjoyed the character dynamic between Susan, Gary, and Lisa, and I appreciated the inclusion of a wheelchair-bound character (being as such myself), I did not like anything else about this book. I give it three stars for effort, for the imagery in the garden is beautiful. The yearning of Gary to be healed and regain the life he once had is a human ideal that I found appealing. However, the use of quantum theory, while crucial to the plot, often eclipsed the other components. The expositi...more
VERY unique blend of sci-fi and suspense/horror -- there's a healthy dose of science in this fiction. It's all about quantum theory. If you get confused, don't worry...supposedly you're that much closer to understanding QT!
I've always been opposed to the theory of multiple universes. The physics idea that in one world I had tuna fish for lunch and in another I ate a PB&J or got divorced or became an axe murder or whatever. The idea that somewhere I could make some choices that I would never, ever make, is appalling. A lot of SF books love to bat this idea around for obvious reasons.
This book very effectively hit some of my big button fears: breaking the rules at someone's urging, good intentions leading to ir...more
This book was a great companion on a bus trip. It is a YA book, so not hard to put down when necessary and then get back into it. Not like the time I tried this with Gaudy Night and tried to juggle those numerous characters and remember which was which.
It looked at the idea of alternate universes and showed you what happens when death is fooled and people survive in their own way. It introduces Schroedinger's cat and makes these concepts real.
The characters were young and unformed. They were not...more
It looked at the idea of alternate universes and showed you what happens when death is fooled and people survive in their own way. It introduces Schroedinger's cat and makes these concepts real.
The characters were young and unformed. They were not...more
Expectation: Very low since I read the reviews and not a lot of people seemed to like it.
Characters: Gary and Susan were vague. I didn't feel like the author delved much on their potential to be amazing characters. But all the characters we're interesting.
Plot: It was great! I loved the concept of a quantum garden, that's just stellar.
Overall: I really liked this book and I'm not usually one who reads sci-fi novels. I was so fascinated, but the book felt incomplete. That's why I'm only giving...more
Characters: Gary and Susan were vague. I didn't feel like the author delved much on their potential to be amazing characters. But all the characters we're interesting.
Plot: It was great! I loved the concept of a quantum garden, that's just stellar.
Overall: I really liked this book and I'm not usually one who reads sci-fi novels. I was so fascinated, but the book felt incomplete. That's why I'm only giving...more
Elijah Strong 1/5/13
Prd. 2
English Good Reads #2
Book: The Last Universe
Author: William Sleator
Overall I found The Last Universe to be the best I’ve read in a long time. The end is shocking, and brings the whole story into one. This book is about a brother and sister named Gary, and Susan going through a maze to find out what really happened to all of their relatives. The brother Gary is an athletic teen but soon becomes ill and loses his ability to walk. Now his sister Susan must rely on taki...more
Susan hates pushing her brother around the garden in a wheelchair. It’s not her brother she minds, although they never were very close before he got so sick. It’s the garden that creeps her out. It’s so big and there’s the long dark passageway between overgrown trees before you come to the dark pond where her great-aunt drowned as a girl. Strange exotic flowers grow there. And when you look out the second story bathroom window you can see an overgrown maze in the center of it; but when you walk...more
Susan's 16-year-old brother Gary has contracted an unnamed disease that steadily weakens him despite regular blood transfusions. The only things that seems to bring Gary relief are his study of quantum mechanics and spending time in the vast gardens of the estate that has been in their family for generations. Gary is fascinated by the strange hedge maze that was built by a quantum physicist ancestor and is sure that his disease has somehow triggered a time-space continuum built into the maze. Hi...more
synopsis: a girl named Susan and her ill brother explore their huge garden. They find a maze that no one has ever found before and it takes them to other universe's, each one better or worse than the last.Susan's brother is getting better but she wants to go back.
CLASSIFACATION:
audience: 13 and up boys and girls
purpose: entertainment not really a lesson
medium: novel
genre-setting: science fiction
genre-style: mystery/ adventure
genre-plot: adventure
criticism: This book was good but it took WAY to...more
CLASSIFACATION:
audience: 13 and up boys and girls
purpose: entertainment not really a lesson
medium: novel
genre-setting: science fiction
genre-style: mystery/ adventure
genre-plot: adventure
criticism: This book was good but it took WAY to...more
This is very much like a lot of William Sleator's other books such as The Green Futures of Tycho. It was an okay read, not great like some of his other books. I appreciate the fact that he uses science in his books, and in this case, there is Schrödinger's Cat, literally. I think the problem with this story is that none of the characters are particularly fleshed out, and a lot of their actions don't ring true.
Susan and her brother Gary, who is stuck in a wheelchair, discover a mysterious maze of hedge bushes in the very large gardens behind their home. Their scientist uncle created the maze and then who disappeared many years go. The maze seems have of a terrifyingly large number of routes and choices. The two discover that each turn they take alters their world in some way. -- Steve Fondiller, Teen Librarian
This book was okay. It had an interesting theory on quantum physics - not saying that I'm an expert, but the basic idea was enough to help me understand. The characters were a bit dull. And the ending was a bit unexpected, but I guess it just shows how unpredictable the theory of quantum mechanics can be - provided that it actually exists.
Science interweaves with fiction creating multiple universes, an interesting plot and some okay characters. But what happened at the end? I'm not going to tell you but I will say I found the ending a let down.
This book went by at such a fast pace, and I hated the ending. So much. It was a major cliffhanger and it's the only book (not part of a series), which I hated. Other than that I liked the story line, but not how it was written.
This book was freaking AMAZING. I love the details, and the way the characters interact, and all the sheet that occurs. And the ending! I love the twist.<3
The best book to try and explain quantum mechanics I have read. It tries to get the point across with a story anyone can relate to.
Talk about keeping you guessing right up to the end. Makes you think of all the possibilities, even if I didn't see this one coming.
glad i only paid $2 for this book and really wish i hadn't even paid that. do not recommend this.
I loved this book, and the ending gave me chills. It's kind of complicated though, so I'd recommend it to people who don't mind some serious thinking :)
Interesting. Took the principles of quantum and made them almost understandable.
Amazing ending... worth struggling through the complicated parts of the book for.
Jul 13, 2010
Louise
added it
Great tale combining science, science fiction, and a destiny of sacrifice.
I read this once (I think?) don't know if I finished it or not...
Jan 23, 2008
Debbie
rated it
2 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
readers who like lots of science in their fiction
Shelves:
sciencefiction,
young-adult-lit
Susan feels resentful because her parents expect her to hang out with and take care of her older brother, Gary. Gary, who used to be athletic, is now confined to a wheelchair and gets weaker every day. When their garden begins to act strangely, they discover the entrance to a maze at the center of the garden that lets them to travel to alternate realities. The author lost me with the details of quantum physics, but readers who enjoy science might feel differently. Good descriptions and suspense...more
I'm giving this book five stars because the ending shocked me. I mean, I don't know how to explain it without spoiling the book so, I guess you'll have to read it to find out what I mean.
I LOVED THIS BOOK
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| The last Universe | 1 | 4 | Feb 07, 2012 07:33am |
His full name was William Warner Sleator III.
He was born in Havre de Grace, Maryland on February 13, 1945, and moved to St. Louis, MO when he was three. He graduated from University City High School in 1963, from Harvard in 1967 with BAs in music and English.
For more than thirty years, William Sleator thrilled readers with his inventive books. His House of Stairs was named one of the best novels...more
More about William Sleator...
He was born in Havre de Grace, Maryland on February 13, 1945, and moved to St. Louis, MO when he was three. He graduated from University City High School in 1963, from Harvard in 1967 with BAs in music and English.
For more than thirty years, William Sleator thrilled readers with his inventive books. His House of Stairs was named one of the best novels...more
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updated Aug 16, 2011 01:51pm