#william sleator

The Duplicate (William Sleator) "When David finds a mysterious machine that can copy living things, he thinks his problems are over. Now he can be in two places at once: at his grandmother's and out on a date. While the other David is in school, the real one can spend the day at the beach. The possibilities are endless. And they turn terrifying. David's duplicate has a mind, ideas, and desires of his own--and one of them is to see the real David dead."

The Double (Fyodor Dostoyevski) "In Saint Petersburg, Yakov Petrovich Golyadkin works as a titular councillor (rank 9 in the Table of Ranks established by Peter the Great[3]), a low-level bureaucrat struggling to succeed.

Golyadkin has a formative discussion with his physician, Doctor Rutenspitz, who fears for his sanity and tells him that his behaviour is dangerously antisocial. He prescribes "cheerful company" as the remedy. Golyadkin resolves to try this, and leaves the office. He proceeds to a birthday party for Klara Olsufyevna, the daughter of his office manager. He was uninvited, and a series of faux pas lead to his expulsion from the party. On his way home through a snowstorm, he encounters a man who looks exactly like him, his double. The following two thirds of the novel then deals with their evolving relationship.

At first, Golyadkin and his double are friends, but Golyadkin Jr. proceeds to attempt to take over Sr.'s life, and they become bitter enemies. Because Golyadkin Jr. has all the charm, unctuousness and social skills that Golyadkin Sr. lacks, he is very well-liked among the office colleagues. At the story's conclusion, Golyadkin Sr. begins to see many replicas of himself, has a psychotic break, and is dragged off to an asylum by Doctor Rutenspitz."

(Sorry I didn't answer this sooner!! I was Stuck on it and then forgot 😭 )

(Edit: FUCKER GOT HIDDEN IN MY DRAFTS BASED ON WHEN I GOT THE ASK, NOT WHEN I SAVED IT SO I THOUGHT I LOST IT, SORRY IT'S EVEN LATER...)

I came up with a few books that might've qualified for this - "Freedom" by Angela Dorsey (one of many horse girl books, of the ghost horse variety) or "The Fire Within" by Chris D'Lacey (one of many dragon books - and I think my selection alone speaks volumes about me lmao)...

I think I've decided to talk about "House of Stairs" instead, by William Sleator. It might be an easy answer because it WAS strange and specific as books go, but it's one that's always consciously stuck with me whereas the other two books I think informed me on a creative subconscious level more than anything.

Full disclaimer - everything written from here on is based on dim recollection. I read it just once in middle school, a time I barely recall at all, and some elements are probably distorted/wrong based on how I envisioned things. But I'm writing it as is because it is SUCH a strong memory even if it's off in places, and I think that more precisely answers the heart of this question than if I pulled up a summary online and described it from that.

I'm also hoping to find a physical copy to own at some point, so part of this is because I'll be interested to come back to this and see how much I described poorly or entirely wrongly.

So that said. House of Stairs.

"House of Stairs" is, in essence, a story about sociological experimentation - the focus of the book is on several teens who get trapped in a labyrinthine space that lives up to the book's title, a reference to the M.C. Escher painting of the same name:

You can already see how this is the "easy" answer for a strange, specific impression.

The building they're trapped in is all white, stairs going up and down no matter how far you look - or go. They're trapped with no discernable exits and no resources, for unknown reasons and an indeterminable amount of time.

So then comes the actual experiments.

Aside from stairs, stairs, and more stairs, there ARE landings, here and there - and some of those landings have little stations with buttons on them. As the kids discover, if you push the button, you get food.

...Until suddenly, you don't.

Then the kids have to sort out, is it broken? Can they wait until it gets fixed? Should they try to fix it themselves or go elsewhere in search of the exit?

This leads to many things - heightened emotions, thoughts and theories, tension, arguments - until suddenly they're rewarded with food again.

Well. No one pushed the button, what happened this time?

And so it goes on, until it becomes clear - the stations are conditioning them, training them with rewards to silent tasks fulfilled. And as the book goes, the kids divide into camps - those who want to listen implicitly to the station, and those who don't. The station starts rewarding harmful behaviors to boot, to see just how far they're willing to go, so the focus of the book narrows to the protagonists who search for a way out.

The book is a YA novel so it ends with them finding the way out of course, being recognized for staying strong and finding a way out, and of course the innate reward of getting out despite the adversity. But the premise of this book itself stuck the strongest with me.

It raises questions like, what if that were to happen to me? What would it take? It's easy to claim you'd be strong-willed and find a way out, only because by knowing the book you know a way out exists. But in practice it's much harder, especially without that knowledge. How long would I last, would I immediately fall into the camp that follows the prompts? Would I resist but fall to its sway? Or, would I fall to the enemy camp, once it became clear they wouldn't get rewarded otherwise?

Sad thing is, as fantastical as the space itself sounds with its descriptions - almost akin to a white void with stairs stretching forever - the overall concept of a space being created for such a purpose doesn't even strike me as all that out there, and I think that suggests it's definitely left an impact on how I view the world.

It's just outlandish enough, and yet there's people all the time who would do such a horrendous thing, in the name of research... or perhaps even just their own amusement.

Honestly I barely remember the ending - how they got out, life after. In a manner of speaking, I think I too got trapped in the house of stairs - only unlike the characters I'm still stuck there, poking around the place and contemplating just how much - or little - it'd take for someone to create such a thing in reality.

Owned: Yes Page count: 166 My summary: Five orphans wake up one day in a place unlike anything they’ve ever seen before. A huge room, filled only with endless staircases, and a machine that gives them food. But as the days progress, it seems the machine is trying to teach them something. It rules their lives - but will it rule their hearts? My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

Here’s a weird one. My school library had this book, along with a few others from the author. For some reason, the weird speculative fiction premise really stuck with me, and a couple of years ago I tracked down my own copy. I keep meaning to look up more of the author’s other work, but for now I’m just going to reread the one I have.

It’s about a game (though of course it’s not really just a game) where different aliens vie for control of The Piggy, a tiny artifact of immense power. But the BIG twist (spoilers, natch) is that The Piggy isn’t actually an object of power at all; it’s a sentient data log, and the game is a ruse so that it will be passed around to as many different civilizations as possible.

Anyway, this morning it suddenly occurred to me who probably built The Piggy in the first place...