By his boots-traps

After an earlier two-dimensional-lifeforms post, helpful commenter Narad called our scholarly attention to a similarly-themed book.  

The Man who Folded Himself is a version of Flat Stanley for a more mature readership. After losing one dimension in a tragic planoforming accident, the narrator fails to find social acceptance in an intolerant three-dimensional world. It is all very coming-of-agey and poignant in an emo way. Eventually he commits origami and turns himself into a giraffe.

Of course two-dimensionality is familiar territory for science-fiction cover artists...

...though usually in the sense of hollowed-out rather than flattened.


HA HA had you going for a while there. In fact Folded revisits the solipsistic SF dream of a world occupied solely by copies of oneself, here accomplished by time-travel rather than cloning. Readers always respond well to stories about "sex with oneself via time travel" and being one's own parents, in which the self-sufficient libertarian ideal of owing nothing to anyone else finally reaches fruition. It is a theme that Disch tried to parody out of existence in 1964 but to no avail. It must be a tradition, or an old charter or something.

It all seems a lot of trouble. You hardly need time travel to find opinionated obnoxious gits who are wrong about everything.

Bonus Boots-traps via Flaming Carrot #16 and #17! Also boots-shooting, boots-stabbing, and vicious man-on-boot shovel action.

***** SPOILER ALERT *****

The town is saved when it rains overnight and the boots all drown.