Space Boy

It must be a sign an author has "come of age" when a half-baked short story can be sold by itself as a "novella". Space Boy is a decent story. However, the writing could use some work. There are a number of obvious typos in the book, and a number of places where the characters seemed to be confused.

The "science fiction idea" in the story is a "worm-hole" that connects earth with a another world. The people in that world look a lot like humans, only they are much more dense (and somewhat smaller). Time on the other world also passes much more slowly than time on earth, and the worm obtains energy from these differences.

The head of this worm just happens to be in a boy's closet. The mom doesn't believe the boy, she's sucked in. Her brother then goes to rescue her. The family also wrecks havoc on the other earth by flooding it and feeling it with manure.

In the end, I was left with the feeling that the earth family were the evil ones. They were inflicting real harm on the other world, while the visitor from that world had not harmed earth. The visitor did seem to want to keep their mother on the planet, but the rationale or reason was never explained. The brief encounter with the guy from the other world is supposed to convince us that he is an evil scientist, however, it only makes the earth family seem worse.