Scott Westerfeld

Early life

Westerfeld was born in Dallas, Texas. As a child he moved to Connecticut for his father Lloyd's job as a computer programmer. He saw his dad working with planes, submarines, and the Apollo missions.

Westerfeld graduated from Vassar College with a B.A. in Philosophy in 1985. He began composing music as a teenager and composes music for modern dance. In 2001, Westerfeld married the Australian author Justine Larbalestier.

He now divides his time between Sydney, Australia and New York City. He has written 18 books, five adult novels and thirteen young adult novels.

Books

Westerfeld is well known for the Uglies series plus its spin-off graphic novel series Shay's Story.. He also wrote Afterworlds, as well as The Risen Empire and The Killing of Worlds, parts one and two of the same work, originally titled Succession, published in the UK in 2005 under the title The Risen Empire.

Westerfeld began his career writing novels for adults, but switched to YA literature with his Midnighters series. He has written four YA novels that take place in New York City: Peeps, The Last Days, So Yesterday, and Afterworlds. While The Last Days is not a sequel to Peeps, it follows a group of different characters in the same setting. So Yesterday is not related to these novels, but is often grouped with them because it is also set in New York City.

He has also written the Leviathan series; an alternate history trilogy set in the World War I consisting of Leviathan, Behemoth and Goliath, plus its illustrated guide The Manual of Aeronautics.

In 2014, Westerfeld had revealed in a press release of a partnership with publisher First Second Books in producing a new graphic novel with illustrations by Alex Puvilland titled The Spill Zone. The graphic novel, which was released officially on October 2016 as an online syndication prior to print release on May 2017, tells of a photographer who ventures back into her upstate New York hometown abandoned by a mysterious event to take pictures of the occurrences happening there since.

Several of his novels have been optioned for films. So Yesterday has been optioned to be made into a film by one of the producers of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine. However, this option 'slowly died', as Scott Westerfeld wrote on his blog. The Uglies series was optioned in 2006 by Twentieth Century Fox as a possible film series.

Themes

A major theme in Westerfeld's work is the idea of free thinking or questioning authority. In Uglies, the protagonist Tally rebels against her society's rules first with harmless pranks and eventually by leaving the city altogether. She finds a group of runaway uglies who refuse to conform to social norms that includes undergoing cosmetic surgery. Similarly, So Yesterday examines popularity and why certain trends are considered 'cool.' The novels praises innovators who think outside the box and come up with new fashion statements entirely on their own.

Another common theme in Westerfeld's novels is coming of age. Because Westerfeld writes primarily for young adult audiences, his protagonists are usually teenagers who find themselves over the course of the novel or series. Tally in Uglies, Cal in Peeps and Hunter in So Yesterday all struggle with finding where they belong until they come to terms with who they are.

Courage is another common theme in Westerfeld's work. His protagonists often face frightening or dangerous problems and have to rely on their own courage to overcome the problem. Often adults are not present during the time of crisis and the protagonist is left to his or her own devices. For example, Cal in Peeps is trained by adults on how to track down vampires, but he goes alone to actually catch them and must accomplish this task completely on his own.

Awards