The Homeward Bounders
The Homeward Bounders is a novel by Diana Wynne Jones. A boy is exiled from 19th-century England and forced to wander through multiple alternate universes.
Tropes include:
- The Multiverse
- Bittersweet Ending: They are defeated, but Jamie has to keep wandering from one world to another, watching his friends age and die around him, in order to keep 'the real place' everywhere.
- Blessed With Suck: Helen.
- Demon Slaying: Konstam and Joris.
- Flying Dutchman: All the main characters; additionally, the actual Flying Dutchman and Wandering Jew are minor characters.
- Game Tropes: This book contains many examples, most notably War Gaming and chance games.
- Genre Savvy: Adam, and to a lesser extent Helen: "I am a cleric and magic user."
- Happiness in Slavery: Joris is Type I of this - although he hated the concept of being a slave, Konstam treated him very well, and Joris liked working for him. Turns out Joris' owners hated slavery and were planning to free him as soon as they could.
- Jerk With a Heart of Gold: Helen again.
- Made a Slave: Joris was at a rather young age.
- Mayfly-December Romance: It's suggested that this is what will happen to Jamie and Helen at the end.
- Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Jamie.
- Stranger in A Familiar Land: Jamie, at the end.
- The Trope Without a Title: The antagonists are just called They.
- Tsundere: Helen, all the way.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Though they're promised that finding their way Home breaks the curse to wander. Jamie can, but gets there 100 years too late and no longer fits in, making this also Stranger in A Familiar Land.
- Walking the Earth: Walking the multiverse.