103 pages • 3 hours read
Rodman PhilbrickThe Last Book In The Universe
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 22-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 22 Summary: “Their Terrible Swift Engines”
Charly takes some convincing, but they get Bean loaded into the takvee and Spaz’s family retreats to their rooms. Just then, the Vandals surround the takvee, with Lotti fresh off her victory over the Furies and her nemesis, Vida Bleek. Lotti asks why Spaz and his group are still here in her latch, and they explain that they’re trying to save Bean’s life and want nothing from her but free passage out of the latch. She gives them permission but tells Spaz he’s responsible for informing Billy Bizmo about her win. Before they leave, she holds up a bag with a human skull inside that is presumably Bleek’s head.
Chapter 23 Summary: “If the World Were Blue”
Just before Spaz was initially kicked out of his house, Bean found a plate in the color blue, a rare color to see. She and Spaz treasured it together, but Charly smashed it, saying it was nothing, just like Spaz. Coming up on the Barrier, Spaz sees the color blue; Ryter has heard of this phenomenon but never seen it. The Barrier is made up of a layer of charged air separating the Urb from Eden. Lanaya compares Eden to a rock in a stream, but Spaz has never heard of a stream because the Urb has no running water. Inside Eden, Spaz cannot understand when Lanaya says the sky is blue and the ground is green. Spaz has to ask about the “blue stuff” (146), because he knows the sky to be gray (due to smog) and the ground as dirt or concrete, and he also can’t make any sense of grass until he sees it.
Ryter and Spaz are overwhelmed by Eden; they try to take it all in, standing in the hatch of the takvee to watch everything pass with their own eyes. Spaz marvels that everything in Eden is open while everything in the Urb feels close and dense. They can’t see any other proovs but according to Lanaya they are all around, just well camouflaged. Spaz sees a live fish for the first time, which he thinks is a “holoquarium,” or a holographic aquarium. They also travel up a hill, which Spaz has never experienced before because everything is flat in the Urb. Spaz asks Ryter to tell them the backtimers’ legend of Eden. Suddenly, they have arrived at Lanaya’s home, an actual palace, and as it turns out, she is an actual princess.
Chapter 24 Summary: “What the Cyber Said”
They are joined by two adult proovs, Lanaya’s parents, called Jin and Bree. They are known as “contributors” because every proov baby is genetically modified before conception. While her parents question Lanaya for breaking the law and bringing normals into Eden, the others bring Bean in from the takvee. It is revealed that Lanaya is a future Master of Eden, meaning she’ll make decisions for everyone in the proov world; that’s why she’s allowed to roam in the Urb, hand out food, and even bring normals into Eden. She has been given “unlimited educational opportunities” (149) beyond even the normal proov child.
Right away, they are able to stabilize Bean in a life-sustaining system, but that’s the best they can do for her at the moment. The contributors leave to consult the Authority about Bean’s condition while the others try out the teaching cyber-intelligence in Lanaya’s “thinkspace.” There, they see the Earth from space, which makes Little Face cry, and visit the Grand Canyon at Ryter’s request. Spaz asks the thinkspace to show them what’s making Bean sick, and it tells them about leukemia, through the aid of a hologram of the human body. The disease had been treated by the backtimers, but as the proovs were made immune to it, they forgot the technology. Spaz becomes emotional about Bean’s situation, announcing that he hates everyone, and goes to see his sister.
Chapters 22-24 Analysis
In Chapter 23, the reader is introduced to Eden, along with Ryter, Little Face, and Spaz, through an interesting access point: the color blue. Rather than just describing the blue atmosphere known as the Barrier that separates the Zone from Eden, Spaz first recalls an incident involving his foster family and himself before they were separated, where Bean finds a blue plate. The children treasure the plate because of its rare color in the Urb, but Charly smashes it: “See, he told her, see? It’s nothing now, it doesn’t exist! There’s no such thing as blue, and even if there was, it wouldn’t mean anything!” (140). Neither child had seen that color, but Bean is capable of imagining a whole world of it. Charly’s act is not meant to hurt the children, but to teach them that in the Urb, there is no place for imagination or speculation. It either is or it isn’t; and for them, with gray skies and gray concrete, there is no room for blue.
Chapter 24 offers an introduction to Lanaya’s parents, Jin and Bree, with a chance for comparing their parenting styles with that of Spaz and Bean’s foster parents. While Charly and Kay reacted verbally and physically to Spaz’s arrival, neither parent hugged their estranged son. In fact, Kay’s failure to hug Spaz was noted in Chapter 20. Perhaps this is because they were not expecting to see him; but when he leaves for Eden, the pair hides in their room and refuses to acknowledge his or Bean’s departure altogether, also refusing him a traditional goodbye as a result. In contrast, Lanaya’s parents, who have seen her much more recently than Spaz had seen his parents, “are obviously pleased to have their daughter home” and each accept “a quick kiss and a hug” (148) from Lanaya.
The names for the rooms in Lanaya’s palace (which she calls “home”) are different than in the Urb; rooms are known as “spaces,” with various names such as “conversationals” or places for “restful thinking” (152) depending on their purpose. Equally, many of the rooms access the outdoors and the unfamiliar spectacle of the blue and green world beyond. The floors are covered in “marbellium” and any wall can become a 3D holoscape. Marbellium has the unique property of being able to change color and surface depending on the inhabitants’ moods. All the rooms also have windows, allowing for views of the rich green landscape or up into blue sky. However, not all proovs live at this level of luxury and any conversation of comparison in Chapter 24 is cut short by more immediate issues.
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