I am returning to the world of Uglies with four new novels. The first three are OUT NOW.

You can buy them in physical bookstores or order them online here.

Perhaps you have some questions?

More of a comment than a question . . .

Ugh.

. . . watching that trailer, I thought it was a TV show or a movie!

Lol. Got you.

These are books. Four novels. We still like novels, right?

Sure. But will there be a movie?

Today’s news is about FOUR NEW NOVELS.

Okay. Are you writing them?

Of course!

I know, I’ve been doing collaborations to stretch myself lately—the Spill Zone graphic novels with Alex (read them online!) and the Zeroes series with Margo and Deb—but this is a solo project.

Where are these books set? Same world? Same time frame?

They take place in the Uglies future, after Tally’s revolution has changed everything. As she once said, “Freedom has a way of destroying things.” The Imposters series is about dealing with the consequences of ending the Pretty Regime. The story starts in a city where things did not work out well. Bad people are in charge.

Dystopian!

Correct. But we also will travel to other cities where things aren’t all bad. This new series is about all the expressions of human nature that’ve popped up after more than ten years of social upheaval.

More than ten years! Is Tally in these books? (Wouldn’t she be, like, super old?)

Lol. She’s, like, THIRTY.

Yes, she is a character in the world. But she’s not a point-of-view character (in the first book, anyway). She’s more like a famous person in the background.

What’s Impostors about then?

A girl named Frey, who’s been raised from birth to pretend to be someone else. She’s a body double. A bodyguard. An impostor!

It’s about the roles that our parents and society force upon us, and how we fight to create our own identities, to invent selves that really belongs to us.

Is that Frey in the trailer?

Not really. This was more of a “Remember Uglies? There’s more!” reveal. There will be another trailer this summer that goes into the plot and characters of Impostors.

Where’s the cover?

Coming soon. It’s lovely.

FORGET COVERS ARE THEIR HOVERBOARDS IN THIS BOOK?

WHAT A QUESTION OF COURSE THERE ARE HOVERBOARDS

Also lots of other cool new tech, never seen before in the Uglies universe.

Like?

Spy dust, suborbitals, lupine surgery, cyranos.

What do those words mean???

Read the book.

Why did you go back to the Uglies world after all this time?

The real world was, like, “Dude. Even stable-seeming democracies are built on seriously rickety underpinnings. Do you really think a bunch of recently awoken bubbleheads are going to make good choices?”

And I was, like, “Dude . . . ”

Dude.

Yeah. Also I had a bunch of science fictional ideas kicking around in my head, and once I came up with Frey’s story, they all started to click.

But you said four books. What are the other three about?

This series mostly follow the adventures of Frey. But later on in the series, Tally (and some other familiar characters) will play a bigger role. The new Uglies world will get bigger and bigger.

There will be one book a year. A book every September till 2021!

Important question here: Is there any romance in Impostors?

There is! But the Love Interest doesn’t know who Frey really is, of course, because she’s an impostor—like in the title! So everything is very tricky, and also our pair are from different sides politically.

Hang on. A guy doesn’t really know who the heroine really is, and they’re on opposite sides? Isn’t that kind of like Leviathan?

Um, Frey isn’t pretending to be a boy. But yes, I do like to play with hidden identities and complicated politics and secrets. Romeo and Juliet is a Thing for a Reason!

Also, unlike with Alek and Deryn, this guy won’t take three frickin’ books to figure it out.

Lol.

Lol.

Wait. You’re writing both sides of this dialog. So this is just you laughing at your own joke.

I slay me.

Any other questions about Impostors?

Why isn’t it call Cakes?

It’s true. “Pretty” is the last word in Uglies, “special” is the last word in Pretties, “ugly” is the last word in Specials, and “cake” is the last word in Extras. So it should be called Cakes.

But the cake is a lie.

Why do you keep spelling it “Impostors” instead of “Imposters”?

Because an “imposter” is someone who works in an impost office. DO YOU WANT TO READ YA BOOKS ABOUT CUSTOMS OFFICIALS? (If you do, there’s probably fan fic.)

Okay. One last question . . . um, IS there ever going to an Uglies movie or TV show?

 ¯\_(?)_/¯

I mean, who knows with Hollywood? But maybe if Impostors is a HUGE bestseller . . .

If you have any more questions, put them in the comments below.

One of the themes of the Uglies series is transhumanity. In other words, how we humans change when we use technology to alter our minds and bodies in radical ways. Throughout the series I tried to juxtapose the good (special reflexes and pretty health), the bad (being bubbleheaded or cutter-brained), and the ambiguous (manga heads and Radical Honesty) changes that our species is capable of.

At this year’s TED conference athlete Aimee Mullins spoke on that very subject. Aimee has no legs, or rather, she has many legs to choose from. In Uglies terms she is a Diegoan, someone who alters her body at will for practical and aesthetic reasons. She’s also good at talking about these alterations in awesome ways.

So check her out in this very brain-rewiring video.

Go here for more about this talk.

Or here to hear a much younger Aimee talk about running.

Over at at the Photoshop contest site Worth 1000, someone has taken the concept of manga heads a bit too seriously.

Behold these classic movie stars in horrific manga form:

Anyway, Justine and I are moving into new digs today, so we may be internet-missing for a few days. So don’t expect much in the way of blogging by me for a bit. (Not that I’ve been very good this year so far . . . )

Instead check out the new Westerfeldian roleplaying board!

Remember that scene in Uglies with the morphos? When Tally and Shay play with a digital version of their face to see what they’ll look like as pretties?

Well, a group of Israeli computer scientists have developed something similar: a “beautification engine” that automatically renders photos of faces into (supposedly) prettier versions of themselves.

I’m particularly happy with the name “beautification engine,” which is kind of steampunk sounding. Here’s an example of its work:

Interestingly, the software doesn’t smooth wrinkles or blemishes. It changes only facial geometry, while trying to keep the face recognizable. (Being faithful to the original is not something they’d worry about in Tally’s city, of course.) And really, like a lot of these attempts to reduce beauty to numbers, it’s more bland-making than anything else.

Here’s the article about the software in the NY Times, and here’s a slide show of celebrity faces altered by it.

What’s intriguing is how many faces are less pretty after they’ve been run through the software. (Especially Marlon Brando.) This may be because we “know” the celebrities involved, and don’t want them changed.

Or maybe it’s because some of these celebs are already pretties, and “there is no beauty without some strangeness in its proportion.” But the software, which looks kind of bland-making to me, removes that strangeness and actually makes certain people less pretty.

It’s cool that this came out now, though, because one of the biggest sections in Bogus to Bubbly is about the science of beauty. I tried to distill a lot of the research that’s been done, and to explain it in psychological and evolutionary terms in ways relevant to the Uglies series. And frankly, I think my explanations are better, or at least more complete, than those in the Times.

You’ll be able to judge for yourself in less than two weeks, because Bogus comes out October 21! (And yes, some school book fairs are already selling the book.)

Thank you for spotting this article, Sophie and Hiroki!

And one last shout-out from the tour bus: Tonight Justine will be in Kansas City, MO to talk about How to Ditch Your Fairy, with me in tow!

Thursday, 9 October 2008, 7:00PM
Kansas City Library
4801 Main Street
Kansas City, MO

The realization of Uglies technology continues!

First, engineers at the University of Washington have developed an eyescreen-like contact lens:

Thanks to Erin-la for this catch!

In other news, howzabout some blood-powered flash tattoos?

Thanks to Jade Lennox and Temvald for kicking this to me!

This subcutaneous digital display uses the sugar in your blood and turns it into the electricity it needs to run. (And it’s Bluetooth compatible.) The article is a bit unclear about what stage this gadget’s at. The photo caption says the it’s being demonstrated, but the article says, “just a concept.” Well, “concept cars” are prototypes . . .

Anyway, it’s sort of like the flash tattoos in Uglies, because it monitors your bio-signs. Not your heartbeat in this case, but your blood chemistry. Seems to me that if it could control its own energy use, it would be great for diabetics.

If you read the articles for both these devices, they both mention cell phone applications. Like, dude, that is so 1997.

Is it just me, or are the flash tattoos out in force these days?

This bit of tat-spotting comes to us courtesy of Gabrielle:

Now I know that facial tattoos have been around for millennia, but I’m seeing a lot these days that seem to look very Special Circumstances-ish. Maybe that’s because my Special tats were based on those of the Maori (the people who got to New Zealand 600 years before Europeans did their “discovering” thing). Maybe there’s just been an upsurge in awareness of Maori culture, or maybe it’s all about henna.

Still, I’d be interesting to know how many of you have spotted sort-of flash tattoos in popular culture lately. Anyone besides Gabrielle?