Product Description

THE WORLD OF UGLIES, SET IN OUR NOT-SO-DISTANT FUTURE,is a complex place filled with bubbly technology and lingo, yet bogus rules about status and appearance. That's why a guide to the world of uglies has been requisitioned from the hole in the wall. Inside you'll find:

A rundown on all the cliques, from Crims and Cutters to tech-heads and surge-monkeys

The complete history, starting with the destruction of the oil bug to the launch of Extras in space

How all those awesome gadgets came to be: hoverboards, eyescreens, skintennas, sneak suits...

PLUS an exclusive look at Scott Westerfeld's first draft of Extras -- starring Hiro, not Aya.

And so much more, it's mind-wrecking.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35093 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781416974369
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Scott Westerfeld's teen novels include the Uglies series, the Midnighters trilogy, The Last Days, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and the sequel to Peeps. Scott was born in Texas, and alternates summers between Sydney, Australia, and New York City.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Cliques

Theoretically, all pretties get along with one another. But in any large group of human beings, there are different types of people who want to spend their time in different ways. So it didn't take long for cliques to form in Tally's city, organized around all the typical new-pretty activities: ballooning, partying, and other kinds of socializing.

Also, it made sense to me that pretties would form cliques. That's the sort of thing that the pretties I knew in high school liked to do.

So here are mini histories of all the cliques mentioned in the Uglies series. (At least, I hope I got them all.)

Tally's City

Being crim can change the world.

-- Miki

The Crims are one of the few cliques that started in Uglyville, about a year before Shay and Tally met. That group ran away to the Smoke, except for Zane and Shay, who chickened out. Zane restarted the clique in New Pretty Town, where Tally later joined. As Tally and Zane become famous for their bubbly exploits, the Crims expanded to become one of the largest cliques in New Pretty Town. Many of these new members wound up as Cutters under Shay's guidance (see "Cutters").

The Crims are most famous for their mass balloon escape from New Pretty Town, and although Zane was soon recaptured, he returned to find the Crims still thriving. Tricks and other forms of rebellion had at last become a part of pretty culture. The Crims became a vital conduit between Tally's city and the New Smoke, distributing the cure to tens of thousands of new and middle pretties. Once Dr. Cable was finally ousted from power, many Crims became, ironically, part of the new political leadership of Tally's city. But by that time, Zane, the Crims' founder, was dead, a tragic victim of the Diego War.

The Cutters were my pride and joy, my special Specials.

-- Dr. Cable

The Cutters were originally a pretty clique started by Shay. When she saw how Tally and Zane were becoming less pretty-minded, Shay tried to create a cure for herself. But the only thing that reduced her bubblehead haze was the extreme pain of cutting. She spread the practice to a few other Crims, including Ho and Tachs, and to many other pretties who had not been voted into the Crims. Together they became the Cutters.

After the Crims' mass escape, the Cutters were recruited by Dr. Cable to become a new division of Special Circumstances. After undergoing her brain-washing, they were dedicated to hunting down the New Smoke. They lived in the wild, even hunting animals for food. In a way, the Cutters lived a twisted version of the Smokey life that Shay had been torn away from (thanks to Tally). Many of the Crims recaptured after the mass escape, including Tally, were given the surgical procedure that turned them into Cutters.

Just before the Diego War, the Cutters were infiltrated by Fausto -- a former member who had been captured and cured by the Smokies -- and he cured all of them. In their new form, they became the heroes of the Diego War and have since helped the New Special Circumstances in many missions against cities that expand too far. They no longer cut, but the name remains.

If Shay hadn't introduced her to the Crims, Tally figured she would have been a Hot-air. They were always drifting off into the night and landing at random places, calling a hovercar to pick them up from some distant suburb or even past the city limits.

Hot-airs are obsessed with ballooning and all forms of flight. They hate to be on the ground, and even when they aren't in balloons, they prefer to be on balconies or rooftops, and they always live on high floors. They call everyone who isn't a Hot-air a "groundling." As the cure spread through Tally's city, a few Hot-airs took up hoverboarding, a pastime previously unheard of in pretty culture. After the mind-rain, many Hot-airs joined the Extras' space colonization project. Some still prefer the traditional hot-air balloon, and vast fleets can be seen taking off from the cities, filling the night sky with wild colors and tiny spigots of flame.

Of course the Swarm was everywhere, all jabbering to one another on their interface rings.

The Swarm is a tight-knit clique that uses skintenna surge to create social bonds. Their skintennas are all on one shared channel, so that anything one Swarmer says is heard by all the others. They go places only in huge groups and generally don't talk to anyone outside the Swarm. Because of the lack of privacy, the Swarm has lots of infighting, and several groups have broken off from the main clique. To make things confusing, they all call themselves the Swarm. All claim to be the original group, and nobody knows which one really is. Since the mind-rain, the Swarm has started to experiment with group-think software, hoping one day to hear one another's thoughts. It is unclear how the clique will evolve if they ever get that to work.

A mostly naked clique of Bashers were pretending to be pre-Rusties, building bonfires and drumming, establishing their own little satellite party, which was what Bashers always did.

Bashers are an all-male clique who like to drum and who often camp in pleasure gardens rather than living in mansions. Since the mind-rain, many Bashers have joined the pre-Rusty societies kept in reservations by the scientists of Tally's city, trying to recapture their true primitive maleness.

...Twisters as sick puppies wearing big cone-shaped plastic collars.

Twisters are the most perverse clique in New Pretty Town, doing outrageous things like making them-selves look ugly for parties. They throw impromptu drum-machine bashes where people wear horrible masks: devils, scary clowns, monsters, and aliens. (We first meet them in the opening chapter of Uglies.) Since the mind-rain, most Twisters have become major surge-monkeys.

Tally stumbled into a clique of Naturals plastered with brittle leaves, walking last days of autumn who shed yellows and reds as she shoved through them.

Naturals are pretties who are into gardening and camping. Not as adventurous as Rangers, certainly, but more likely to go into the wild than a normal pretty -- though they always bring along lots of champagne.

Asian Cliques

Of course, cliques are different in every city and region. To completely understand the world of Extras, you should probably know a little about the social forces in that part of the world. So here are a few of the cliques that appeared in Asia after the mind-rain.

Great, another cult of me. Just what the world needs.

-- Tally

The importance of fame in Aya's city, combined with the fact that Tally is the most famous person in the world, has led to the rise of the so-called Youngblood Cults. Some of these cliques are simply historical clubs, trying to learn what they can about Tally as a revolutionary and as a person. Other cults, however, are more focused on surging to look like Tally did when she was an ugly, a pretty, or a Special. They seem to have forgotten that Tally's true message is one of self-determination, not hero-worship and imitation.

You Sly Girls don't cry when you watch the big-face parties on the feeds, just because you weren't invited. You don't stay friends with people you hate, just to bump your face rank. And even though nobody knows what you're doing out here, you don't feel invisible at all.

-- Aya

The Sly Girls are an all-female secret clique dedicated to doing tricks without becoming famous. The clique was started by Ai (last name unknown), but the Sly Girls' official leader is whoever has the lowest face rank at any given moment. Although the Girls are personally anonymous, their tricks, like bridge jumping and mag-lev surfing, made them famous as a group, and their name became synonymous with mysterious forces at work in the world -- like gremlins or faeries.

After Aya Fuse's story that featured them kicked, the Sly Girls became annoyingly famous and had to relocate to another city for a while. But they were soon recognized (for their tricks, not their Plain Jane faces) and became famous there as well. Now they are reconciled to their fame, though they disappear from the public view for long periods of time. And they are rumored to be working on a really big trick.

Maybe Frizz's intense gaze made everyone feel this way. His eyes were so huge, just like the old Rusty drawings that manga-heads based themselves on.

Manga was one of the great popular art forms of the Rusty era, so it isn't surprising that after the mind-rain, many people wanted to look like manga characters. Small noses, big smiles, and huge eyes are the main characteristics of manga-heads, and some sport gravity-challenging hairstyles as well. (Note: Manga-heads are split into many subcliques, depending on the style of the source material.)

So let me get this straight, Aya-chan. You want me, a person who can't lie, to lie about the fact that I can't lie?

-- Frizz

To solve his own problem with truth-slanting, a manga-head named Frizz Mizuno requested that city surgeons perform a new type of brain surge on him, one that eliminated his capacity to lie. A side effect of the operation was that he had to share everything about his life on his feed, which made him a very popular kicker, and this in turn spread the popularity of his surgery. Frizz ultimately reversed the surge, preferring to rely on his own willpower to tell the truth, but his clique, Radical Honesty, is still growing in popularity. Offshoot cliques include Radical Hilarity, Radical Loyalty, and Radical Niceness.

Ever...

Customer Reviews

An Interesting, "did you know", book.
This book was interesting and full of new info. There were a lot of facts which summed up the Uglies Series. For example, Westerfeld writes a whole history explaining the down fall of the Rusties in detail, which he never made clear in the books.

The writer did a lot of explaining to help the reader understand the gizmos and gadgets that the Series is full of. He brought blueprints and manuals to the book to aid us in visualizing the machines. Westerfeld helped us understand the reasoning behind the politics such as why Tally's government made Prettytown and why they decided to make teenagers stupid.

Hidden messages were always part of the series. Westerfeld made the meaning of the messages more clear. He believes that the world could be headed to a world like the Rusties. He thinks over-population and global warming are a big concern that needs to be looked after if we're to save ourselves from a world like Tally's.

Westerfeld even gave us writing tips on how to come up with sci-fi names and different themes for books. All in all it was a bang-up book full of nifty information that really helped me understand the world of Tally better. If you're a big fan of the books, you'll definitely want to add this to your collection to have as a reminder of what the Uglies world really is underneath all of the "bubbliness".

great insight into Uglies and the writing process in general
Sometimes, when a book series gets really popular, writers will try to cash in by writing unauthorized guides to the story or books about the "science" behind popular fantasy titles. Then, rarely, you get a book like Bogus to Bubbly: An Insider's Guide to the World of Uglies (2008) that was actually written by the ultimate insider: Scott Westerfeld.

Uglies is a series of books (one trilogy and a companion book) about a world in the future where in order to prevent war and strife everyone gets plastic surgery to be beautiful and live long. Everyone else, by contrast, is ugly. That is the super, super short explanation of the series which is more complex. I don't recommending reading this guide before the series because it contains spoilers and, truth be told, unless you know you like the books this guide will not be that interesting.

Westerfeld explains a lot of things in this book. He discusses where the idea for the story came from, as well as how he thought of skintennas and the Rusties. Parts of the book also explain technology, history, and culture surrounding the worlds created in the Uglies series.

What I liked about the book was that it mentioned a lot about the writing process. While Westerfeld himself notes that it's hard to trace the origin of ideas, this book does try. It's interesting to read how a dentist visit inspired several aspects of the book while, thankfully, we are not the entire inspiration behind the Rusties. Explanations of names and slanguage were also very informative and interesting.

I was less enthralled by the technology information. It was fun to hear about the science of beauty, but the information about magnetic levitation, hoverboards and inventions got a bit, well, technical. Although I fully admit that could be me since Uglies is one of the few straight sci-fi series I read (I usually go in for fantasy which, having dragons and what not, is guaranteed to be less technical). There is also a bit of repetition with the books revealing much of what Westerfeld puts together in Bogus to Bubbly but that is probably inevitable with an insider's guide like this.

Aside from content, I liked the book's organization. It's written like a real guide with cross-referencing between sections and an index. The book also includes illustrations and maps which helped a lot to visualize the city as it was meant to be seen.

While the entire book might not be read-worthy for every fan, it's very likely at least one nagging question about the series will be answered in this book. Mine, for instance, being whether belly sensors were indeed belly button rings or not. Readers will also leave the guide with a new insight into how the writing process might work. On top of that, Bogus to Bubbly also includes a preview of Westerfeld's new series Leviathan.

My only serious regret is that the Awesome Librarian Clique only warranted passing mention (though since they didn't factor in the books at all, perhaps that is to be expected).

An Outsider's View of the Insider's Guide
I've had the Uglies series on my wishlist for ages so when this popped up I thought it would be a good starting point to tell me whether I should really bother with it. Deep down I am a fan of this kind of book, the whole "guide to the world of" thing. I think anyone who gets deeply into a series or genre can relate to a desire for just a little bit more from their favorite series. But is a book like this one really worth it?

Having not read the series I can definitely say it tells a lot about the books themselves. It spoiled a lot of the plot and things I wouldn't already know if I'd been starting the series. What I liked was the glossary and the slanguage sections. I always get annoyed by slang and special language terms being used in books without knowing exactly what the author intends them to mean. What I didn't like was the feeling that while a lot of the tech was getting attention, not much else really was.

As another reviewer commented... it felt like it was targeted at a younger reader than the audience for this series is. As an adult reader interested in the series it made me wonder if it might be too juvenile for my tastes. So don't be a goof like me... don't buy this hoping to let it determine whether you'll like the books or not... I think it might heavily misrepresent it and spoil a lot.