Skip to main content

story identification - Help Identify Youth novel about higher dimensions




I read this book about 10 years ago I think. It was probably published in the 90s but quite possibly the 80s. The main plot as I remember involved a high school girl who falls for the new student. He reveals that he knows how to "move in a different direction" and visit higher order dimensions where you can only see certain sides of objects and creatures. There are monster type beings that they hide from. I think the girl accidentally travels by herself to the 5th or so dimension and he has to rescue her. I think it was hardback, maybe orange cover.



Answer



Sounds like The Boy Who Reversed Himself, by William Sleator.


From Wikipedia:



A high school girl named Laura grows suspicious when a report of hers appears in mirror writing, and Omar, the weird boy next door, makes it go back to normal. Furthermore, he seems to be parting his hair on a different side than usual. He first refuses to explain what's going on, but after she repeatedly coaxes him, he reveals that he has access to the fourth dimension, where he accidentally "reversed" himself. He eventually allows her to visit it under his supervision, but he warns her that it is extremely dangerous and that he is violating some agreement by letting her in on the secret. She tries to use her access to the higher dimension to impress Pete, a popular boy she wants to go to the school dance with, but after she seems to disappear into thin air and unlock a door from the other side, Pete realizes something funny is going on, and she feels pressured to show him the truth, without Omar's knowledge. When she brings Pete into four-space, they lose their way and end up as the captives of four-dimensional creatures. Unfortunately, she determines that escaping might threaten the very existence of her own world by making the powerful 4-D creatures aware of it. With Omar's help, she finds a safe way out and learns the truth about how he came to know about other dimensions.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

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.
Post a Comment
Read more

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...
Post a Comment
Read more