William Warner Sleator III says that he began writing when very young and that even then he was interested in the weird and uncanny aspects of life. Sleator was raised in a family of scientists, but he was interested in the arts and eventually became a pianist, composer, and writer. He read science fiction avidly; perhaps his dual interests in art and science led him to this kind of speculative fiction. He was born to William Warner, Jr., a college professor of physiology, and Esther Kaplan Sleator, a pediatrician, in Havre de Grace, Maryland, on February 13, 1945.

By the time Sleator reached high school, he was composing music with titles such as "Guillotines in Springtime" that reflected his preoccupation with the macabre. He entered Harvard as a music major; he says that he was miserable there, with his unhappiness reflected in somber compositions.

He seems...