SOLVED. YA SciFi 1990s Boy transported to planet where the man who owns Earth lives [s]

[Benjamin]

This is the highest-rated unsolved question on SciFi StackExchange, but I don't see anything about it here, so I'm cross-posting it to this group. Hope that's okay.

I read this book probably in the late 1990s. I assume the intended audience is teenagers/youth because I checked it out of my junior high library.

In the book there is a boy on a plane and the plane crashes, but right before it does he is transported off somehow and onto another planet. The planet he's on, he finds out, is the home of the being that owns and runs the earth. This being is very advanced and is part of a civilization that basically runs the universe. They believe in order and not allowing any bad things to happen, so all the known worlds (except a few) are perfect paradises where nothing bad ever happens. But this guy, he values freedom of choice over order, which is why the earth has so many problems, he lets people make choices.

In addition to the boy from earth, I also remember there being a wild, Amazonian-type woman that the planet-owning guy took from one of his other planets right before she died. I don't really remember much about her except that she killed a bird at one point because she was hungry and the advanced alien guy got ticked, because his civilization values life very highly. He then brings the bird back to life.

He's allowed to continue his "experiment" for a while, but his political opponents constantly threaten to take away his planets. Eventually, they do take away his planets, saying that he has been negligent and allowed things to get out of hand (because on earth there's about to be a nuclear war). He gets exiled and his civilization sends a fleet of battleships to basically subdue the earth and force humanity to be good from that point on.

At the end, his biggest political opponent realizes (too late) that her own progression as an individual is now going to be halted because she will no longer have anyone to fight/disagree with and that her growth will now be stagnant. Before, she grew a lot as a person as she struggled to find a way to take out the guy who ran the earth, but now that he's gone she doesn't grow anymore, and she realizes he was right: people need diversity of thought to help them grow and become better.

That's about all I remember.

- from Cooper on scifi.stackexchange.com

Comments:
- not Orson Scott Card
- most immortal beings are basically human
- ends with all three protagonists exiled to planet outside galaxy with no light
- Not Job: A Comedy of Justice nor The Transall Saga nor Inside UFO 54-40 nor Star Maker nor The Stars My Destination
- already posted to AbeBooks, but I don't know where

[Tab]

Sounds like Keeper of the Universe by Louise Lawrence. It also is called Ben-Harran's Castle

Here is a lengthy review from School Library Journal:
School Library Journal:
Gr 7-12-- Christopher is an English teenager on board a flight to Athens, heading for a hotel job that he hopes will help him escape the tedium of school and family. A sudden explosion cuts the flight short; he wakes up some time later in a barren room within a strange castle, accompanied only by a barbarian queen and the Erg Unit, an introspective and occasionally too conscientious robot. Christopher gradually learns that Ben-Harran, the owner of the castle, is one of a race of Galactic Controllers, highly evolved beings who have taken on responsibility for maintaining peace and harmony throughout the known universe. Ben-Harran is responsible for the galaxy that includes Earth, and is presently in deep trouble with the rest of the Council for his refusal to use the Overseers and mind-control methods that guarantee peace. Because his insistence on free will allows his "subjects" to determine their own fates, (view spoiler)[Ben-Harran's foes are holding him responsible for the deaths of all the inhabitants of Zeeda, an Earthlike planet recently wiped out in a self-induced conflagration of total warfare (hide spoiler)]. Christopher's role in this drama(view spoiler)[ is to be an exhibition of the evolution of free will. He accepts his relocation with apparent ease, and goes on to demonstrate a remarkably sophisticated level of reasoning for the rebellious teenager introduced at the beginning of the story. This classic theme--free will v. outside control--has been explored with similar results in many other novels, all of which come out on the side of free will. In this novel, though, Lawrence seems to be reconsidering the worth and the promise of life on Earth relative to the galaxies. (hide spoiler)]

[Benjamin]

Thanks, Tab. If Keeper is not it, then someone needs to be sued.

I posted this back onto SciFi StackExchange, but if you want to answer the question there yourself and get the reputation points then I will delete my answer:

http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questi...

[Tab]

No need to delete your answer :) Thanks for linking to the Goodreads thread on Scifiexchange.

I found the SLJ review using a book database called "Novelist Plus." Some libraries give patrons access to it.

There is a Kirkus review, here. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...

It's a little more concise than the SLJ review.