Pfeffer, Susan Beth
Entry updated 26 October 2021. Tagged: Author.
(1948- ) US author for children and the Young Adult market from 1970, perhaps best known for the nonfantastic The Year Without Michael (1987). Of sf interest are two series: the VCR Time Travel sequence comprising Rewind to Yesterday (1988) and Future Forward (1989), whose young protagonists engage in generally lighthearted Time Travel, as enable by their mysterious VCR, both backward and forward; and – very much more in tune with her emotionally taxing nonfantastic work – the far more demanding Life As We Knew It sequence, comprising Life As We Knew It (2006), The Dead and the Gone (2008) and This World We Live In (2010), set in a world devastated by a great Disaster: the Moon, knocked out of orbit by a Comet, has generated a profound Climate Change with the onset of an unending winter; as is typical with Pfeffer's works, realistically conflicted relationships dramatize the tale, whose moments of genuine grimness, as winter locks in and food and living room run short, are only lightened partially by a conclusion bearing hints of survival. [JC]
Susan Beth Pfeffer
born New York: 17 February 1948
works
series
VCR Time Travel
- Rewind to Yesterday (New York: Delacorte Press, 1988) [VCR Time Travel: illus/hb/Andrew Glass]
- Future Forward (New York: Delacorte Press, 1989) [VCR Time Travel: illus/hb/Andrew Glass]
Sarah Kate
- Sarah Kate, Superkid (New York: Henry Holt, 1994) [chap: Sarah Kate: hb/Suzanne Hankins]
- Sarah Kate Saves the World (New York: Henry Holt, 1999) [chap: Sarah Kate: hb/Tony Deluna]
Life As We Knew It
- Life As We Knew It (New York: Harcourt Children's Books, 2006) [Life As We Knew It: hb/]
- The Dead and the Gone (New York: Harcourt Children's Books, 2008) [Life As We Knew It: hb/]
- This World We Live In (New York: Harcourt Children's Books, 2010) [Life As We Knew It: hb/]
- The Shade of the Moon (New York: Harcourt Children's Books, 2013) [Life As We Knew It: hb/]
collections
- Ghostly Tales (New York: Delacorte Press, 2000) [hb/]
links
previous versions of this entry