“Ryter!” I scream out, but he can’t hear me or see me.
Then I’m begging Billy Bizmo. “You’re the latchboss, you can stop them!”
Billy does a weird thing. He puts his chetty blade on the ground and reaches out and touches the side of my face. “Sorry, kid. No one can stop a mob when it wants blood. Not even me.”
“You didn’t even try!”
“I did what I could, Spaz boy. They could have blamed you. I made sure it was the old man.”
“But why? Why him and not me?”
Billy shakes his head as if he can’t believe I’m so stupid. “Because you’re my son,” he says.
YOU’RE MY SON.
The truth of it explodes inside my head and turns me upside down and inside out. I don’t know my name, or who I am. I don’t know anything. All I know is, I’m running away from Billy Bizmo. Running into the mob, fighting my way to the old man. Screaming for them to stop, it wasn’t his fault, please stop.
The crowd melts enough so I can see what’s happening. They’ve tied the rope to the back of a jetbike, and Ryter is hobbling along, trying to keep up.
I try to call his name, but nothing comes out. All I can do is follow as they wheel him through the stacks. The mob chanting, “DO IT! DO IT!” but the jetbikers are taking their time.
People from all over the Urb have come to see them wheel the old man. They want to punish Ryter for all the bad things that have ever happened, and I see from their faces that Billy’s right. No one can stop what’s going to happen.
A couple of times I try to grab him and undo the drag ropes, but the Bangers keep shoving me off. They think it’s funny, me trying to free a wheeler. Part of the game. Their eyes are dead cold because they can’t feel anything, and if I’m not careful, they’ll wheel me, too.
I don’t care if they do.
“Don’t risk it!” the old man warns me when I make a move. “You’re my only hope!”
“But they burned your pages!” I cry, running after him. “Your book! They tore it up and burned it! I tried but I couldn’t stop them.”
Ryter looks back at me and smiles. “The pages don’t matter,” he says. “You’re the book now! You’re the last book in the universe! Make it a good one!”
The Bangers finally get bored and decide to end it. They gun their engines. The drag rope yanks at Ryter and he falls, his frail body spinning away from me.
They wheel the life out of him, then, until there’s nothing left but a bundle of rags, and the broken bones of my old friend. But I’m not there at the very end. My brain won’t let me see it, not the worst part.
The last thing I remember is running after the jetbikes and then the smell of lightning fills my nose, the clean electric smell that comes after a thunderstorm, and the blackness rises up and takes me down.
WHEN I FINALLY WOKE UP, the mob was gone and the fires had burned out. The whole latch felt empty, but I could see people hiding in the shadows, biding their time until it was safe again. As safe as it ever gets in the Urb.
I thought about running away. I thought about following the Pipe to the end of the world. And then I thought about what Ryter said, and I went back to his empty stackbox, but there was nothing left, not even a scrap of paper. So I walked through vacant streets where the buildings were taller than daylight. I walked through burned-out blocks that still smoldered, and empty ruins that even the rats had left behind. I walked until I found myself at the Crypts, the concrete bunker where the Bully Bangers live, and I went to my cube and stayed there, watching old 3Ds and trying not to remember. Staring at the walls and trying not to remember. Sleeping and trying not to remember.
Nothing worked. I kept remembering.
Once a Banger came and told me Billy Bizmo wanted to see me, but I said forget it, and then one day Billy himself came down and told me how my mother had died when I was born, and he’d put me with a family unit because it was no good growing up with a latchboss for a dad, and he hoped someday I’d understand about that, and about everything else, too.
“I understand I never want to be like you,” I said, and he went away and left me alone.
Later that night I did a really strange thing. I went down to the pawn mart and found this old voicewriter in a tronic junkpile, covered with dust. There’s a lot of gizmos you have to attach, but basically you talk in one end and words come out the other. And so I started talking about the old man, and all the things he told me, and how he helped me run the latches and save Bean and everything, and after a while I sort of figured out what he meant about me being the last book in the universe.
They call me Ryter now, like they called him.
And then one night I wake up in the dark and know I’m not alone.
“Who’s there?” I say to the darkness.
A latch runner speaks from the shadows. “I’m not here,” he says. “We never met, understood? All I am is a message.”
“What message?”
“A message from Eden,” he says. His voice sounds like the whisper of wind in a clear sky. “Someone you know says, ‘Chox!’ and ‘Don’t forget me!’ and ‘Thank you!’ and a whole lot more. He grows a little every day and we love him as our own. Do not despair, my friend. Today is theirs, but the future is ours.”
Long after the runner vanishes, I can hear Lanaya’s message echoing in my head. Especially the last part about the future being ours.
Yes, I’m thinking, yes, I’m writing, yes, yes, yes.
About the Author
After years of writing mysteries and suspense thrillers for adults, Rodman Philbrick decided to try his hand at a novel for young readers. That novel, Freak the Mighty, was published in 1993 to great acclaim. In addition to being named an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and winning several state awards, it was also made into the Miramax feature film The Mighty in 1998. Rod returns to Freak the Mighty protagonist Maxwell Kane’s story in a sequel, Max the Mighty, a fast-paced cross-country odyssey.
Rod takes young readers to the American West in his exhilarating tale of two brothers on the run, The Fire Pony, winner of the Capital Choice Award, and on to a land where nothing is as it seems in the science-fiction adventure REM World. After completing The Last Book in the Universe, also an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, Rod thought back to his New England roots and knowledge of boat-building to write The Young Man and the Sea, the story of a boy who tries to save his family by catching a giant bluefin tuna. School Library Journal praised the novel’s “wide-open adventure” and “heartpounding suspense” and named it a Best Book of the Year in 2004.
Rodman Philbrick has also written several spine-tingling series for young readers with his wife, Lynn Harnett, including The House on Cherry Street and The Werewolf Chronicles. Rod and Lynn divide their time between homes on the coast of Maine and in the Florida Keys.
Writing for the Future: An Interview with Rodman Philbrick
Q: What inspired you to write The Last Book in the Universe?
A: The editor Michael Cart asked me to contribute a story to an anthology called Tomorrowland. At first all I came up with was an intriguing title, “The Last Book in the Universe.” Then I had to think up a world where there might be a “last book,” and think about why people had stopped reading. After finishing the short story, which was eventually published, I couldn’t stop thinking about Spaz’s world and set about making it a full-scale novel. No doubt many of the “sci-fi” elements came from my love of movies like the original The Time Machine, and from my adolescent fascination with comic book adventures.
Q: We’ve included the original short story in this book. What did you do to expand it into a novel?
A: The short story is pretty much confined to Spaz and Ryter. To make it an interesting novel I needed more characters and more adventure. So I invented Eden and populated it with people who had “improved” themselves genetically. Then I added Spaz’s sister Bean, put her in peril, and the adventure began.
Q: Spaz is different from most
of the people we meet in the Urb. In part, it’s because he doesn’t use mindprobes because of his epilepsy, but there’s something else that sets him apart as well. What do you think that is?
A: Spaz is an outsider, so he’s more able to think for himself and see the world with clear eyes. He’s open to people, as he hopes they’ll be open to him.
Q: Is Ryter based on a real person?
A: Ryter is an older and much braver version of myself — an improved me that looks like Sean Connery!
Q: Life is obviously very different for humans after the Big Shake, but do you see any parallels between Spaz’s world and our own?
A: Oh, yes. There are versions of the latches in many urban areas today. Various addictive drugs do as much damage to the brain as the mindprobes. And of course we’ve embarked on the dangerous and exciting adventure of investigating the process of genetic engineering. No one knows how far it will go, or if the human race will eventually take control of its own evolution.
Q: Our society is fixated on makeovers and plastic surgery. Aren’t we already on our way to creating proovs?
A: Yes. Take a walk through Beverly Hills and you’ll see them everywhere.
Q: Speaking of proovs, the characters in this book use a lot of words that aren’t part of our vocabulary. How did you come up with them?
A: As a teenager I was fascinated by the Anthony Burgess novel A Clockwork Orange. He made up words that are a combination of Russian and English. It added to the whole flavor and feeling of the story. I tried to do a similar thing by inventing words that might be useful in my own future world.
Q: Ryter makes a few references to The Odyssey while he and Spaz are traveling across the latches. How is their journey similar?
A: The warrior Odysseus is trying to get home to his wife and family. He repeatedly risks his life to try and find his way home. Spaz’s family is one person — his stepsister Bean — and he’ll do anything to help her. Spaz isn’t as courageous as Odysseus, and he certainly isn’t a great warrior, but Ryter recognizes the similarities and comments upon it.
Q: You’ve written books that are based in a familiar setting, like Freak the Mighty, and others that take place in lands you’ve invented, like this book. Which is easier to write about?
A: Imagined worlds are always a bit more difficult for me. I can’t write about a place until it seems real in my own head, so that obviously takes a leap of imagination that’s not required for the real world.
Q: Your most recent novel, The Young Man and the Sea, also involves an epic journey of sorts. What can you tell us about it?
A: It’s the story of Skiff Beaman, a kid who sets out in a very small boat at night, alone, and journeys thirty miles out to sea to try and harpoon a giant bluefin tuna.
Q: Can you imagine a world without fishing? What would you do in your free time?
A: Is there anything but fishing and being out on the water? Well, yes, actually. I have to keep the boat in good repair so it doesn’t sink! Luckily I’m good with my hands.
New Words for a New World
Rodman Philbrick created a whole new way of talking for Spaz and the people of the Urb. Here is a selected glossary:
3D: a holographic movie that’s considered old technology compared to a mindprobe
backtimes: the time before the Big Shake, the cataclysmic earthquakes that destroyed civilization
bork off, to: to irritate
bristlebar: a protective device
cancellation: death
carboshake: a beverage that provides energy
chetty blade: a machete knife
choxbar: a prepackaged food item that tastes like chocolate
contributors: what proovs call their birth parents
crib: a room or a home
cut someone’s red, to: to kill someone
cutwire: a protective device similar to barbed wire
cyber-intelligence: a sophisticated computer
deef: a person with a genetic defect
Eden: a secure area within the Urb where proovs live
Forbidden Zone, the: an area planted with land mines that separates Eden from the Urb
googan: an idiot
gummy: an old person
hide-or-cancel: a children’s game
holoquarium: a holographic image of fish swimming in water
holoscape: a 3D illusion of a landcape
latch: a subdivision of the Urb controlled by a gang
latch-boss: a gang leader who controls territory in the Urb
looping: participating in a probe that repeats endlessly
luvmate: a lover
med-tek: a medical technician; like a doctor in the backtimes
microflash: a flashlight
mindprobe: a virtual reality experienced by your mind via an electrode needle
mope: dumb, lame (used as an adjective or a noun)
needlebrain: a person addicted to mindprobes
normal: a person who has not been genetically improved
Pipe, the: a tunnel system that used to transport water
proov: a genetically improved human
runner: a person who carries messages illegally between the latches
shooter: a violent mindprobe
splash, to: to kill
splat gun: a deadly weapon
stackbox: a concrete room used for storage in the backtimes, now used by squatters as homes
stunstik: a weapon that delivers an electric shock
takvee: a Tactical Urban Vehicle; an armored cyber-driven van
tek: a Technical Security Guard
trendie: a mindprobe about life in Eden
Urb, the: the area inhabited by normals
voicewriter: a machine that converts the spoken word into text
wheel: to drag a person in the street, tied to a jetbike
zoomed: crazy
The Next-to-Last Books in the Universe
Here are a few more books that look to the future and ask, “What if?”:
Feed by M.T. Anderson
What if we had computer chips implanted in our brains — a constant feed of information, games, and advertising? Titus doesn’t think about anything but what the feed tells him, until he meets Violet, a girl unlike anyone he’s ever met.
Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
In Spaz’s world, people don’t read books. In Guy Montag’s world, they burn them. A classic novel about censorship and freedom.
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
Matt is a clone — a genetic double of the most powerful man in Opium, El Patron. When El Patron dies, Matt begins a journey that will lead him to question everything he knows.
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Jonas lives in a structured community where there is no pain. But when he is chosen to become the community’s Receiver of Memory, he must take on all the pain and suffering of the past.
1984 by George Orwell
Written in 1949, when 1984 was the future, this novel explores life in a society where the Thought Police can read your mind and where Big Brother is watching your every move.
The Last Book in the Universe
The Original Short Story
The Last Book in the Universe began as a short story for an anthology called Tomorrowland: 10 Stories About the Future. When Rodman Philbrick finished the story, he didn’t want to stop writing because he knew Spaz had a lot more to say. Here are excerpts from the original short story.
If you’re reading this, it must be a thousand years from now. Because nobody around here reads anymore. Why bother, when you can just probe it? Put all the images and excitement right inside your brain and let it rip. Trendies, shooters, sexbos — name it and you can probe it. Shooters are hot right now, but last year all anybody wanted to probe was a trendy.
Sexbos, they’re always popular, even if nobody wants to admit it. Why that is, I can’t say exactly, because I’ve never probed a sexbo or any of the other mindflicks. Not because I wouldn’t l
ike to, but because I’ve got this serious medical condition that means I’m allergic to electrode needle probes. Stick one of those in my brain and it’ll kick off a really bad seizure and then — total meltdown, lights out, that’s all, folks.
Which really borks me. Because I’d love to probe a sexbo, if you want to know the truth. Just so I’d know what everybody else is talking about.
They call me Spaz, which is kind of a mope name, but I don’t mind, not anymore. I’m talking into an old voicewriter program that prints out my words, because I was there when the Bully Bangers went to wheel the Ryter, and I saw what they saw, and I heard what they heard, and it kind of turned my brain around.
See, the Ryter was this old geez living in a little stackbox on the edge of the projos. A place where losers get stored, because they can’t get anything better. Nobody owns the stackboxes, and if you squat in one long enough, I guess you can call it home — if home is a ten-by-ten concrete box stacked ten high, in rows of a hundred. Used to use ’em for prisons, before they came up with the mind fix for criminals.
There’s no hydro in the stacks, no plumbing, no broadband, no nothing. Just the empty box and a door that looks like the lid on a sideways dumpster.
Anyhow, back to the old geez. The first thing that was different about him was he left his door open. See, I’m all jacked to kick the mutha down, but when I turn the corner the door is open, and my foot connects with nothing, just empty air. Which makes me feel like a real googan, and I guess he saw the look of it on my face.
“Could have happened to anybody,” the geez says. He’s kneeling on the floor by some old crate he’d fixed up as a desk, and he doesn’t seem the least surprised about the bustdown. “Come on in,” he goes, “make yourself at home.”
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