Skip to main content

story identification - What young adult SF book is about a boy saved by aliens and domed colonies?


When I was younger (lets go with probably about 20 years ago), I read a f/sf book that I've been looking for ever since, but I can't for the life of me rediscover it. It centers around a boy who is rescued from (I believe) a flood, by aliens, who take him to a sort of a domed colony, populated by other humans saved from disaster. The setting in this domed colony is more or less suburban, but there are robots that are considered caretakers, that keep it running, etc. (and actually, it turns out that the robots are the only ones left, and that their creators are not extant).


Over the course of the book, the boy travels to similar domed colonies that house other alien species. In one, he comes across (this is a little fuzzy in my memory here) a fruit that enables transmogrification, which is used in an alien ritual of some sort.


The only other detail I can recall is that at the climax of the book, this fruit is used to become one of the robots' creators, in order to break into some sort of control center.


This has been bugging me for the better part of a decade - hopefully somebody here is familiar with this book.



Answer



I did a bit of Google searching and found the following answer posted by user sallievern on whatsthatbook.com:


Journey to Terezor by Frank Asch


Book cover of *Journey to Terezor*




Matt and his parents are rescued from a flood by alien robots who have set up colonies of intelligent beings from various worlds on Planet S-15. Matt joins two other children, Sarah and Ryan, in an attempt to reprogram a robot to get them back to Earth. Sarah and Ryan are caught, but Matt escapes to another colony and lives with the alien Dar for a while. Cyber, the robot, returns for him; they rescue Sarah and Ryan and set out for Terezor, the original planet of the robots. There, Matt changes his body to that of a (now extinct) Terezor and reprograms the master computer.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Did Dolores Umbridge Have Any Association with Voldemort (or Death Eaters) before His Return?

I noticed that Dolores Umbridge was born during the first Wizarding War, so it's very likely she wasn't a Death Eater then (but she is pretty evil -- who knows?). After that Voldemort was not around in a way that could affect many people, and most wouldn't know he was planning to rise again. During that time, and up through Voldemort's return (in Goblet of Fire ), did Umbridge have any connection with the Death Eaters or with Voldemort? Was she doing what she did on her own, or was it because of an association with Voldemort or his allies? Answer Dolores Umbridge was definitely not a good person. However, as Sirius points out, "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". Remember that he also says that he doesn't believe Umbridge to be a Death Eater, but that she's evil enough (or something like that). I think there are two strong reasons to believe that: Umbridge was proud to do everything according to the law, except when she trie...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF

harry potter - What is the difference between Diffindo and Sectumsempra?

In the Harry Potter books, Diffindo is called the 'Severing Charm' and it’s most commonly used to cut ropes and the like. However, in the last book Hermione uses it on Ron but misses, creating a 'slash in his jeans' and his knee gets cut, causing him to 'roar in pain'. We've only seen Sectumsempra used once on screen when Harry directly uses it on Malfoy in the sixth book, but there it's mentioned that he is 'waving his wand wildly'. Wouldn't Diffindo, if used in such a fashion also cause a similar effect? Similarly, if it was able to cut Ron, it would also be able to, say, chop off an ear (George's)? In that case, how are these two spells different, except for Sectumsempra seemingly used exclusively to hurt humans? Answer While Diffindo and Sectumsempra both can be countered by other spells, Diffindo is far more easily countered. Reparo, a relatively common spell, can completely reverse its effect when used once. “He pulled the old cop...