Alcohol and drug abuse has long been a major topic in contemporary realistic fiction for young adults, although it has rarely been dealt with within a science-fiction context. Among the more successful novels dealing with alcoholic parents are John Donovan's I'll Get There: It Better Be Worth the Trip (1969), Sharon Bell Mathis's Listen for the Fig Tree (1974), Betsy Byars's The Pinballs (1977), and Julia Cunningham's Come to the Edge (1977).