Next SFF Author: Hannah West

Previous SFF Author: C.L. Werner

SFF Author: Scott Westerfeld

(1963- )
Scott Westerfeld ghost writes for some famous authors (but he won’t say who, of course). He is married to fantasy author Justine Larbalestier. Read Mr. Westerfeld’s comments about his books at his website.

Uglies: Recommended for teens with issues

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies is a futuristic teen adventure book that will keep even adult readers enthralled from the first page.

Tally is ready to be pretty. When you turn sixteen in this futuristic world, you are plucked from school and taken to have the “operation” that turns you from an Ugly into a Pretty. When you’re pretty you can do anything. You get to move to New Pretty Town and party all night long if you choose and Tally can’t wait to join her friends who have already “turned.”

By turn of chance Tally meets Shay.

Pretties: A sequel that doesn’t disappoint

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

Finally, a sequel that does not disappoint!

Tally finally has all she ever wanted: She’s pretty, she’s popular, she’s in the coolest clique in New Pretty Town.

What could possibly go wrong now?

Nothing does… until the night of the coolest costume party ever when a blast from the past shows up and leaves her a mystery to follow. All of a sudden Tally and her new friend Zane not only have a mystery to solve, but two tiny white pills to take…

Specials: Read it to satisfy your curiosity

Specials by Scott Westerfeld

Tally has changed since she was caught by Special Circumstances. She has become one of them: a Special. Her body and mind have been altered and she is now an elite fighting machine with super-fast reflexes and a hardened body that can withstand almost anything…but none of this can really make her happy. Tally is surrounded by “friends,” but none of them can take away her memories of her friends from the Smoke and the lessons they taught her. Then she and Shay get a breakthrough and once again whiz off into the wild on their hoverboards searching for the elusive “New Smoke”

Leviathan: A wonderful mix of the utterly original and the familiar

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Leviathan is the beginning of a new steampunk YA series by Scott Westerfeld, author of other well-known (and highly recommended) YA series such as Uglies and Midnighters, along with one of my favorite non-YA science fiction works of recent memory, The Risen Empire (even more highly recommended). As is usual with good YA, don’t let the label turn you away; Westerfeld knows how to write for a younger audience without dumbing things down and without excluding older readers.

Behemoth: A fun, smart series for all ages

Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

Behemoth is Scott Westerfeld’s follow-up to Leviathan, the first book in a new steampunk series set in an alternative Europe on the edge of WWI with the Austro-Hungarians and Germans (“Clankers”) using steam-driven machines and the British and their allies (“Darwinists”) using genetic engineering. Leviathan was one of my best reads of 2009, and Behemoth would have been on my list for 2010 had I gotten around to reading it by the time I compiled my list.

Goliath: The thrilling conclusion to the trilogy

Goliath by Scott Westerfeld

Goliath is the concluding third book in Scott Westerfeld’s LEVIATHAN trilogy (imagine that — a trilogy with only three books) and it brings a wonderfully entertaining YA steampunk/alternate WWI series to a suitably strong close. I won’t bother recapping the world or background since you really need to read books one and two first, so read my review of Leviathan (above) to catch up on the backstory if you’d like.

Goliath picks up shortly after the events of Behemoth,

Spill Zone by Scott Westerfeld

Spill Zone written by Scott Westerfeld illustrated by Alex Puvilland

Scott Westerfeld’s newest story, Spill Zone, is a graphic novel illustrated by Alex Puvilland that takes place several years after Poughkeepsie suffered a major “spill,” and while nobody knows exactly what that entailed, nanotechnology and a nuclear power plant are mentioned as being involved. Whatever it was changed things inside the city, leaving behind fantastical creatures, changed animals, and “meat puppets” (think zombies). Addison’s twelve-year-old sister Lexa escaped that night,

Imposters: A semi-successful return to the world of UGLIES

Impostors by Scott Westerfeld

Scott Westerfeld has long been one of the best YA authors going, with multiple stories well worth a read, including the UGLIES, LEVIATHAN, and MIDNIGHTERS series, all of which are top-notch. And his SUCCESSION sci-fi series, more adult in nature, is absolutely great. So a new title from him is big news, made even bigger when we learn it’s a return to his beloved UGLIES trilogy. Honestly, it’s hard to live up to that sort of expectation,

Shatter City: A fast-paced follow-up to Impostors

Shatter City by Scott Westerfeld

Shatter City (2019) is the sequel to Scott Westerfeld’s Impostors, a set of four novels extending his UGLIES series by picking up roughly a decade after that earlier quartet ended. As I noted in my review of Impostors, this series doesn’t quite match the high quality of those earlier books, and seems aimed at a somewhat younger audience, but still retains enough of Westerfeld’s plotting strengths to make for an often exhilarating read.

Sympathy for the Devil: A collection of bedtime stories

Sympathy for the Devil edited by Tim Pratt

Please allow me to introduce Sympathy for the Devil, a fine new anthology filled entirely with short stories about the devil… who is, as we all know, a man of style and taste. However, you won’t just find the smooth-talking stealer of souls here. In addition to that famous version of His Grand Infernal Majesty, you’ll also find funny devils, monstrous devils, abstract devils and strangely realistic ones. Devils scary and not-so-scary, devils who are after children’s souls and others going after old men.

Stefan Raets´s rating: 3.5 | Charles De_Lint, Charles Stross, China Mieville, Elizabeth Bear, Holly Black, Jay Lake, Kage Baker, Kelly Link, Neil Gaiman, Scott Westerfeld, Stephen King, Tim (T.A.) Pratt | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Zombies vs. Unicorns: Fun YA anthology

Zombies vs. Unicorns edited by Holly Black & Justine Larbalestier

Back in 2007, Holly Black and Justine Larabalestier got in an argument about which fiction creature was superior — zombies or unicorns. Spurred on by that debate, they each recruited some of their author friends to write short tales in which they present the storytelling possibilities of the two mythic beasts. With header notes for each story in which they discuss the historical background for the different takes on the creatures, Holly Black heads up Team Unicorn,

Ruth Arnell´s rating: 3.5 | Carrie Ryan, Cassandra Clare, Diana Peterfreund, Garth Nix, Holly Black, Justine Larbalestier, Kathleen Duey, Libba Bray, Margo Lanagan, Meg Cabot, Naomi Novik, Scott Westerfeld | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |

Next SFF Author: Hannah West

Previous SFF Author: C.L. Werner

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Recent Discussion:

Sandy on Quest for the White Witch: The exciting conclusion to an epic trilogyMay 5, 2025
Thanks for the kind words, Marion! Coming as they are from a professional writer, they are much appreciated!
Marion Deeds on Quest for the White Witch: The exciting conclusion to an epic trilogyMay 5, 2025
Wonderful review, Sandy.
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The "body count" bothered me a bit less because being dead seemed more like an inconvenience than anything else... unlike…
Marion Deeds on The Antidote: Sometimes great, sometimes befuddlingApril 26, 2025
Detailed, thoughtful review, Bill. I'm going to read it for two reasons. First, Karen Russell wrote it, and second, it…
Bill Capossere on Red Rabbit: Perfect blend of western adventure and wild magicApril 25, 2025
this sounds like a fun one

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