Next Gen News

Science-fiction author who used dystopian settings to tackle social issues

Sleator's first publication of note was The Angry Moon (1970), a picture book based on a legend of the Tlinglit people in the Pacific northwest of the US. The Angry Moon, which was illustrated by Blair Lent, was chosen as a Caldecott honour book by the Association for Library Service to Children, but Sleator soon turned to longer fiction.

House of Stairs (1974), one of the first great dystopian novels for young adults, concerns a group of deeply troubled orphans who awake to find themselves imprisoned in a huge structure based on the famous MC Escher print of the same name, which consists of nothing but staircases that they must constantly climb up and down in search of food. Eventually they discover that they are part of a secret government psychological conditioning program and that, rather than being expected to work together, they are being trained to treat each other with cruelty. The Young Adult Library Services Association named House of Stairs as one of its 100 best books for young adults.

Sleator's parents, intensely intellectual, involved in the St Louis arts community and strongly supportive of Sleator's early artistic attempts in both writing and music, were nonetheless somewhat hands-off when it came to their children. This is a theme that runs through many of his books, particularly Interstellar Pig and the highly autobiographical collection of short stories Oddballs (1993). His other significant novels include his first, Blackbriar (1972), Singularity (1985), The Boy Who Reversed Himself (1986), The Duplicate (1988), Strange Attractors (1990), The Boxes (1998) and The Last Universe (2005). His final novel, The Phantom Limb, written with Ann Monticone, is due to be published next month.

In his later years, Sleator alternated his time between the small village of Bua Chet, in Thailand, and Boston, in Massachusetts. He was predeceased by his mother, his sister, Vicky; and two partners, Paul Peter Rhode, in 1999, and Siang Chitsa-Ard, in 2008. He is survived by his father and his brothers, Tycho and Daniel.