The theme of family relationships, especially between siblings, is frequently intertwined with the science fiction plotline.
[3] Others cite a strong resemblance to the paranoid, dream-like style of Franz Kafka, which is most notable in House of Stairs, one of Sleator's more popular novels.
After college, Sleator moved to England, earning money by playing music in ballet schools.
His characters are reluctant teenage heroes, and Sleator's younger siblings and friends have often found themselves being written into his prose,[1] as in the semi-autobiographical story collection Oddballs.
[5] Unlike the 'Golden Age' science fiction future-oriented model (one of Buck Rogers tomorrowlands), Sleator's work often includes a morbid or negative fixation on the past or includes visions of dystopian[3] or alternate worlds (future or otherwise) in which something has gone wrong.