Given the many books Sleator has written it is surprising that none repeats the major elements of The Night the Heads Came. Indeed, he seems to have made an effort to rarely repeat himself. Novels such as Dangerous Wishes share with The Night the Heads Came the avoidance of cliches common to literature for young adults. Sleator's novels generally feature very imaginative backgrounds with carefully considered alternative worlds, as in the case of The Beasties (1997; see separate entry, Vol. 9), but works such as Singularity (1985; see separate entry, Vol. 8) and The Spirit House share with The Night the Heads Came an ordinary American setting in which extraordinary events take place. In these latter settings, teenaged protagonists tend to be caught up in events that become their responsibility to solve, and they are required by these testing circumstances to mature out of immature expectations for themselves into people...