Reviews

Interstellar Pig by William Sleator

khadijah3's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

doritobabe's review against another edition

4.0

I think this was a super-fun, great YA read and I am happy to have read it as an adult. I am also very disappointed I didn't stumble across this book when I was younger during the times when I would be dragged out to lake-side cabins for family vacation.

Interstellar Pig tells the story of a not-so-boring summer vacation with one's parents.... this one includes

Spoiler

(you guessed it) ALIENS

.

Barney is vacationing in an old sea Captain's cabin. The cabin is steeped in gothic lore featuring the captain's brother and a long lost treasure. (I am trying to summarize the book without giving too much away, but it's quite difficult to do without making this whole review a spoiler.) Ultimately, Barney must learn to navigate a relationship with some very strange, fellow vacationers and a mysterious, intriguing board game that they have.

All I have to say is this is a super fun, very enjoyable read. It was interesting and a bit of a puzzle; perfect for those who love sci-fi and board games. Really, this could maybe have been a series arc of something like Dr. Who or Star Trek.

kbhenrickson's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This was a read-aloud with my son that was also one of the first sci-fi books I remember from my own childhood (along with the White Mountains series). My son found the story creepy (in a way that he enjoyed), but he was mystified by some of the things that were common in the 80s but not really anymore - peoples' obsessions with being tan, the parents' disinterest in / irritation with their child (and letting him spend so much time alone or with the complete strangers renting the place next door). I think the story itself held up pretty well, though.

implantastic's review against another edition

4.0

I liked this book because it reminded me a lot of Zathura and Jumanji. This read was from my library as a "Blind Date with a Book"

zu_reviews's review against another edition

5.0

This was hailed as one of William Sleator's best, and though it wasn't my favourite of his at the time that I read it, I still loved it and it has stuck longer with me than five star reads back in the day.

It's "Jumanji" meets Ready Player One if they had a baby in the nineties.

caseykd's review against another edition

5.0

I remember reading this book in Elementary school and I Absolutely LOVED it!! It was a fun book to read and kept my attention!

asimilarkite's review against another edition

4.0

Hot damn I need to read this book again. I remember it being totally badass, weird, and awesome.

grid's review against another edition

4.0

I picked this up from the library because there is a board game based on the game in the book and I felt like I needed to read it as a result.

The book is light YA, with a kind of fun premise about aliens playing a very deadly game (that doesn’t ever really get deadly because... YA). It’s implausible on many levels, and lacks a lot of big picture details, but still an enjoyable read.

The game that purports to be based on it just had a Kickstarter.

emperorcupcake's review against another edition

adventurous tense

4.0

Such a delightfully weird book. I never read this one as a kid, but I feel like my exposure to William Sleator (with Into the Dream at an early age helped make me the weird reader I am today! Excited to keep reading more from him. What an awesome treasure trove of weird old books.

I didn't even know this was summery when I picked it out, but this is a perfect beachy, tentacle-y read!

misskiherzog's review against another edition

2.0

We read this class as a 7th grade class. We found this book to be a bit hard to grasp; though it was a good atmosphere, we thought it could have been written more clearly and fluently. It took a long time to get to the point, and it was a lot of filler. The climax doesn't seem to happen until the last few chapters. I almost wish I had assigned the sequel, because we assume all the action would be in the sequel. (We wish the pirate part was in more detail and exciting!)
Maybe we could have read this differently, but drawing it out took away the pace and really made it slow. That being said, those that read it quickly and were able to grasp the concepts right away say that this was an amazing read. I have to assume that this is a niche book that is targeted to very few.

As a whole class, we rate this 2.5 stars (and one 5 stars).