Other editions of book The Homeward Bounders

If he finds the right world, Jamie can get Home again.When Jamie stumbled upon the powerful Them playing Their mysterious games, They threw him out to the Boundaries of the worlds. Since then, he's been yanked from world to world, doomed to wonder in hope of one day finding his way back to his own city.Bit by bit, though, Jamie realizes there are rules They have to play by. He forms an alliance with two other lost Homeward Bounders—bitter, powerful Helen and demon-hunter Joris—and takes a desperate chance, hoping that the three wanders can find a way back to their home worlds at last.Once he becomes a pawn in a game played by a powerful group he calls Them, 12-year-old Jamie is repeatedly catapulted through space and time.

"You are now a discard. We have no further use for you in play. You are free to walk the Bounds, but it will be against the rules for you to enter play in any world. If you succeed in returning Home, then you may enter play again in the normal manner." When Jamie unwittingly discovers the scary, dark-cloaked Them playing games with human's lives, he is cast out to the boundaries of the worlds. Only then does he discover that there are a vast number of parallel worlds, all linked by the bounds, and these sinister creatures are using them all as a massive gamesboard. Clinging to Their promise that if he can get Home he is free, he becomes the unwilling Random Factor in an endless game of chance. Irresistible Diana Wynne Jones fantasy adventure, featuring an insect-loving shapeshifter, an apprentice demon hunter and a whole host of exotic characters clinging to the hope that one day they will return Home.

When They threw Jamie out to the Boundaries, he was at first too shocked and amazed to make much sense of it. He'd been told he could go Home if he found himself in the right world, but life seemed to be a succession of strange countries -some pleasant, most dangerous-where survival was all that mattered.Little by little, though, Jamie realized that there was a curious logic in things -- he wasn't the only Homeward Bounder, for one thing, though some, like Ahasuerus and the Flying Dutchman, had been trying to get Home for a very long time.But Jamie decided to try and do more than that. Together with some other Homeward Bounders -- Helen, who could do extraordinary things with her withered arm, Joris the demon hunter (and Konstam, his master) -- and other friends, he plotted to oppose Them directly, in the fortress that seemed to be Their chief stronghold.This is a remarkable, powerful story, full of unexpected events and ideas, which will absorb and fascinate all those who read it.

If he finds the right world, Jamie can get Home again.When Jamie stumbled upon the powerful Them playing Their mysterious games, They threw him out to the Boundaries of the worlds. Since then, he's been yanked from world to world, doomed to wonder in hope of one day finding his way back to his own city.Bit by bit, though, Jamie realizes there are rules They have to play by. He formsan alliance with two other lost Homeward Bounders -- bitter, powerful Helen and demon-hunter Joris -- and takes a desperate chance, hoping that the three wanders can find a way back to their home worlds at last.