num_pages: 240
description: "The girl walked naked out of nowhere on a winter night &amp; to psychiatrist Paul Fidler it was as if one of his own obsessive visions of disaster took human form, bringing nightmares to life. Tiny, appearing harmless, she had half killed a man who tried to assault her. Piquantly lovely, she belonged to no known racial type. Of high intelligence, she spoke a language no one could be found to understand. Most remarkable of all, commonplace objects like clothing &amp; cars were a mystery to her. They called her Urchin. Himself haunted by visions of unrealized disaster, irrationally terrified by things he might have done wrong but escaped by chance, threatened by the failure of his marriage &amp; with it his career, Paul sees in her a victim of his own fears made real. Has she truly wandered out of her own familiar world &amp; been cast adrift-the loneliest of all lonely people-in another branch of the universe? Inexorably, as he scrapes at the barriers of secrecy that surround Urchin, he finds his fate becoming linked to hers. His life collapses about him until at last he has nothing left but Urchin herself &amp; the vision she has given him of a world far better than any he's ever known. But does he really have either? Quicksand is a novel of today about a lone man facing a fantastic crisis. It will move you to pity &amp; sadness."--dust jacket 
language: English
title: Quicksand
titlecomplete: Quicksand
characters: Paul Fidler
genres: Science Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Fiction
ratings_count: 110
publisher: Sidgwick & Jackson (London)