Sorry I’ve been offline so long, but I’ve been in Byron Bay relaxing with Justine’s family. We did lots of body surfing, ate lots of good food, and I slipped out of the fun occassionally to work on Specials rewrites. (Thanks to my sister-in-law Niki for the invite!)
The coolest thing we did at Byron was swimming in a tea-tree lake. That’s a salt-water inlet surrounded by melaleucas trees, the soothing oils of which saturate the water. The lake is the color of tea, and it’s very peaceful and supposedly really good for you.
While I was marinating, that article I was interviewed for in the New York Times came out. Featuring this scary-ass picture:
Stephan Elleringmann/laif
Ahhhh! Although I guess any story that starts with a dog eating a woman’s face couldn’t have a nice picture. Still.
They quoted me twice! Apparently, writing Uglies and Pretties makes me an expert on face transplants.
You can read it here, or if you don’t feel like registering, here’s my quotes:
A new face might one day be a covetable luxury item, suggested Scott Westerfeld, a science fiction writer, whose novels “Uglies” and “Pretties” project a future in which a compulsory operation at 16 makes everyone conform to an ideal standard of beauty. In that future world, “it’s not just how much cosmetic surgery you get, it’s how often,” Mr. Westerfeld said, adding, “There will come a day when having extreme cosmetic surgery will be like buying a $1,000 Gucci bag, an indication that you are a member of the privileged class.”
. . . and then somebody else talks, and then . . .
Mr. Westerfeld noted that such themes, once the province of science fiction, now parallel mainstream attitudes about the self and identity. There is increasing acceptance that “as human beings we get to choose who we are,” he said. “And the line between what you get to choose and don’t choose is moving all the time.”
I can’t remember what I was trying to say there exactly. But at least I didn’t sound like too much of a wanker.
In other news, Uglies is an Amazon Top Ten Teen book!
That is all. We’re tired. But stay tuned for my Sydney Opera House photo essay!
So S&S have been promising to send me the cover photo of Specials, but haven’t yet. And lo, I find this on Amazon?
It seems to be missing a tagline.
Uglies: “In a world of extreme beauty, anyone normal is ugly.”
Pretties: “What happens when perfection isn’t good enough?”
Specials: “???”
Discuss . . .
Also: awards news from Australia!
Both Justine and I have been nominated for the Aurealis Awards! Her for Magic or Madness, and me for Uglies and Peeps!
This is wonderful news, and it’s also the first time we’ve been in direct competition for a prize. People always ask us if we get competitive about this sort of thing, and now we can finally make up some really gnarly stories of spousal conflict! (But really, no, we’re not. We’re only competitive about stuff like who can spit the farthest.)
And congrats to all the other nominees, especially our pals Cat, Sean, Rjurik, and Garth, as well as Rob for his editorial successes. w00t!
Two of them:
I woke up this morning (Saturday in Sydney) to an email from my S&S publicist telling me to immediately call a reporter for the NY Times. They wanted to interview me for an essay about cosmetic surgery, pegged to the recent face transplant in France. Apparently thanks to Uglies, I am the man to call when someone’s face gets eaten by a dog.
But luckily for my breakfast, the piece was about cosmetic surgery in the future. The questions were smart, and despite the fact that I hadn’t had any coffee yet, I think I said some intelligent stuff. I’ll let you know when (and if, always if) the article appears.
Announcement 2:
The book that has been optioned is So Yesterday! I can’t tell you the producers yet, but one of you has got it right! Which Justine and I didn’t think would happen, because it’s kind of out of left field.
But let’s say for now that I have met with them and am thrilled with their ideas. I’ll be able to reveal all before the end of the year, or so my agent says.
Let the serious casting begin! Here are the parts:
Hunter Bracque: a 17-yo trend-spotter with an ambiguous relationship to “cool.”
Jen James: his innovator love interest. A cross between Kim Possible and . . . well, pretty much just Kim Possible.
Mandy Jenkins: Hunter’s smart alecky boss at a certain athletic shoe company. I get dibs on Sarah Silverman.
Lexa Legault: Technogeek and visual effects artist.
Tina Catalina: Hello Kitty geek supreme.
Antoine: Bronx God of athletic shoes.
Hiro Wakata: Lord of All Things With Wheels: bikes, inlines, skateboards, etc.
Hillary Winston-Smith: escapee from Gossip Girl world.
Mwadi Wickersham: anarchist of cool, and the Missing Black Woman not in all those Nike ads.
Futura Garamond: ace designer and anarchist sidekick. Dresses like a “gay body-builder doing an ironic take on NASCAR fandom.”
Hunter’s Mom and Dad: perfume designer and epidemiologist, respectively. Hmm.
Those of you who haven’t read the book, feel free to bone up with the recently released paperback edition.
Well, the bad news is that I can’t announce contest winners yet. Not because I don’t want to, and not that there are no winners, but because the producers would prefer I wait until the deal is all signed, sealed, and delivered. Sorry for being naive, but I didn’t think it would take this long.
But I will say that many of you have made excellent suggestions for casting, including Emily Browning, who I was already thinking about (but for what part? I can’t say). And one of you has actually got the producers right, but not the book. None the less, that person will win a great big signed author’s copy of whatever you want. (But, frustratingly, I can’t tell you guys who this lucky winner is yet.)
In the meantime, I can announce that Uglies and Peeps have been been chosen as School Library Journal best books of 2005. I’m very pleased about that, and would like to thank SLJ for all the support they’ve given me over the last two years.
I’m in Melbourne right now talking to school librarians, and next week we move into the new apartment, so I won’t be posting as much. But hopefully by the time we get internet access sorted out at the new place, I can share all the great news with you.
In the meantime, keep making casting suggestions. I can tell you that the producers are reading this blog . . .
A quick post to answer many of your questions in posts and via email (and a contest).
Midnighters comes out March 1, 2006.
Uglies comes out May something, 2006.
The sequel to Peeps comes out late August in 2006.
The Midnighters TV show is an option the WB owns. So far, it’s in a holding pattern for a possible Fall 2006 pilot.
The movie deal of Book X is still with attorneys. I will let you know once that’s all over.
And now for the contest, which has two options. You can:
Cast the Movie
If you want to guess about the movie deal, feel free to use this comment thread to do so. But you can’t just guess which book is going to be (maybe) made into a movie. You also have to cast at least one part!
To win:
a) You must get the title of the book right.
b) Your casting choice must amuse or edify me.
And you can also:
Guess the Producer
To win:
a) You must get the title of the book right.
b) You must also name a title of a previous movie produced by the person who is buying the rights to make a movie of my book.
Make only one guess for each game, please. Do not enter if I told you already (duh).
Winners both get: Something that you don’t already own from my author’s copies bookshelf, signed to them by me.
(And if it turns out that someone actually gets a casting choice right, I will give them something really cool.)
A trip to my local Barnes & Noble today reveals that PRETTIES IS OUT! On the local favorites table, there was a stack of ten, right between Eragon and Sisterhood of the Unwashed Pants.
And I also hear that Amazon is shipping them right now.
Excellent . . .
And now as part of Pretties Week, a quick note on fun with facial symmetry.
In Uglies, there’s a scene in which Tally and Shay choose which side of their faces is prettier, and use that side to base their future pretty-face on.
You see, everyone’s face has two different sides, but the pretties in my world have perfectly symmetrical features. So the two sides are exactly the same. Scientists think that symmetrical faces are more attractive (to most people) because major differences between the left and right half of your face can result from malnutrition and other developmental problems. Attraction to symmetrical faces is evolution’s way of steering you toward well developed mates.
But it’s really fun to see what you’d look like with symmetrical features. Take a picture of yourself, then take one side and flip it over. However, as the result above shows, you have to get a good, straight-on photo. And as these pictures from a Regents Exam Facial Symmetry activity page show, make sure NOT to tilt your head when taking facial symmetry photos!
Because this:
can turn into this: 
Which is not a good look.
Pretties comes out on November 1, just over a week away, so it’s time to begin the celebrations!
For those of you who don’t know, Uglies and Pretties are set in a world in which cosmetic surgery is not optional. The society has lots of theories about what makes a face the right kind of pretty, and this week I’ll be discussing the science behind those theories.
So let’s start with . . . face averaging!
One of the ways scientists generate fake pretty faces is to visually average the general population. Basically, you stick a lot of pictures of faces into a computerized blender and morph the results together. See how the third face is pleasanter to look at than the first two?
It is believed that averaged faces tend to be more attractive because it’s good to have a wide variety of genes from across the local population. People with a wider set of ancestors are (by definition) less in-bred, which means they’ll have more disease resistance and other neat superpowers like that. So we’ve evolved to think that people with genetically average faces are good mating material.
So how do we know what’s average? Answer: By looking around at the people where we live.
The faces above are from a German University, which is why they’re white. In a recent University of Western Australia study, however, researchers found that in a mixed-race society, the faces considered most attractive have mixed racial characteristics.
Australia’s population is composed mostly of Asians and Europeans, so when reporting the study the Sydney Morning Herald chose a model with Scottish, Spanish, Phillipine, and other Asian ancestry to make their point:
A definite hottie. Of course, the US version would have more African ancestry and probably more Latin American in the mix as well.
Anyway, averaging faces is only one technique that the Pretty Committee in Uglies uses to create beauty. And of course in the real world, we find all kinds of extremes attractive, as well as personality, accomplishments, and shared personal history. We’re just talking about statistics here, not individual preferences.
For me, averaging (especially by computer) often leads to a bland beauty. Like, say, these two faces composed of 64 Germans each:
Generic + Vaguely Creepy = Yawn
Just got this from Simon & Schuster, a treatment for the cover of Uglies in the United Kingdom:
A really different look from the US cover, but I love it! It has a much creepier feel, because of the surgical pan. (Well, and the body parts, too.) I give it the simple-but-effective award.
Plus, the color scheme is cool. (Or is that a “colour” scheme?)
I don’t think it comes out there until April 2006. Because, you know, they have to translate it into English.
Well, I’m off to Mexico tomorrow. I may photoblog from San Miguel a bit, but I’ll mostly be working.
So before I go, here’s my big news: This morning I sent off the finished first draft of Specials, the third book in the Uglies series. There are rewrites and edits to be done, but I’m basically done with the trilogy. Yee-hah!
Wait? Book three! Well, to answer once more the most common question in my fan mail, Pretties, book two, comes out in less than two months!
I know, crazy isn’t it? I’m a whole book ahead of my publishers. But that’s the way it goes. The text has to be edited, reviewers’ copies have be sent out, marketing campaigns planned, and that’s before book stores fill out their order forms. Justine explains it here.
Watch this space for the cover of Specials, which I’ve been promised is coming my way soon.
In the meantime, I’m off to Mexico to relax, recreate, and start on my next book, which may (or may not) be a sequel to Peeps.
Sorry I haven’t been posting much. Specials is due next Tuesday, and I’ve been writing at a screaming pace. But the fact that I was in Uglies visualization mode made the following un-not-point-outable.
Those of you who’ve read Uglies may remember the roller coaster scene on pages 63-5. It’s all about how kids who ride hoverboards (personal flyers halfway in size between surf- and skateboards) use the rusting metal in an ancient roller coaster to assist their magnetic levitation to new heights.
If that sounds hard to visualize, dont’ worry. I just came across this Photoshopped image in a Fark contest on the subject of theme park fantasies, and am happy to see that somebody shares my insane hoverboard/rollercoaster vision.
For the rest of the images, click here.
As you can see, my website has had its first makeover in many years. This is to celebrate the fact that my first new series in years, Leviathan, comes out this autumn. (October 6, to be exact.)
Things may be wonky for a while as we play around under the hood. But I hope you enjoy the new look. Let me know what you think!
Click here to contact Scott Westerfeld.
Jill Grinberg
Jill Grinberg Literary Management
244 5th Avenue, 11th floor
New York, NY 10001
212-620-5883
info@grinbergliterary.com
