Scott Westerfeld's Blog

There’s a Leviathan Panel this week at Anime NYC, and I am on it!

Panel Name: Creating LEVIATHAN – Behind the Scenes with author Scott Westerfeld!
Date: Sat August 23
Time: 7:15PM – 8:15PM
Location: Room 1A06

Come and say hi!

By the way, here’s a wonderful and detailed interview with me and the other creators of the Leviathan anime.

The post Leviathan Panel at Anime NYC appeared first on Scott Westerfeld.

The Leviathan anime is out now, on Netflix.

It’s been a long journey and a wonderful one, thanks to the extraordinary work by Studio Orange and Qubic Pictures. So much amazing talent has been poured into this series, somehow caputuring all three books in twelve short episodes. It sounds mad, but it works!

Click here to watch!

The post Leviathan Anime Streaming Now! appeared first on Scott Westerfeld.

I’ll be Guest of Honor at Chicago Steampunk Expo this weekend. All in support of the Leviathan anime, coming soon on Netflix. Come say hi!

Here’s my schedule:

FRIDAY, May 30
7pm – Opening Ceremonies (Mahogany V – Main Stage)
9pm – VIP Cocktail Party (Suite 2321)

SATURDAY, May 31
11am – Q&A (hosted by Leanna Renee Hieber) and Leviathan preview (Mahogany V – Main Stage)
12pm – Afternoon Tea (Cyan)
1pm – Book Signing (Slate)
6pm – VIP Banquet (Cyan)

SUNDAY, June 1
11am – Q&A (hosted by Leanna Renee Hieber) and Leviathan preview (Mahogany V – Main Stage)
12pm – Afternoon Tea (Cyan)
1pm – Book Signing (Slate)
3pm – What does SP mean to you? (hosted by Leanna Renee Hieber) (Copper)

The post Chicago Steampunk Expo! appeared first on Scott Westerfeld.

Come see me at YALLFest, Saturday Nov 15-16 in Charleston SC.

Here are my events:

FRIDAY NOV 15, 2024
2:30-3:30PM
Charleston Public Library:
John L. Dart Branch
A group signing. I’ll sign anything you bring!
This is a ticketed event. Tickets are no longer available online,
but maybe there’s some way to get them in person.

SATURDAY NOV 16, 2024
11:00AM
Charleston Museum
Another signing! No tickets required!
Bring whatever you got and I’ll sign it, but also there will be books for sale.

SATURDAY NOV 16, 2024
2:00PM
American Theater, Ballroom
“Back and Forth to the Future”
Space, Dystopia, and the Periodic Table of Sci-Fi Elements
A panel about skiffy stuff.

SATURDAY NOV 16, 2024
4:00PM
Charleston Music Hall
“This is a Spin-Off of the Panel Before”
Companion Novels, Offshoot Series, and More!
A panel about writing maybe too many books in one world.

The post Me at Yallfest! appeared first on Scott Westerfeld.

The new Uglies audiobook is available TODAY, read by the wonderful Brianne Tju, who plays Shay in the Netflix movie. Check out my interview with Brianne, and a couple of excerpts, below.

Click here to buy it!

The post New Uglies Audiobook: OUT NOW appeared first on Scott Westerfeld.

To support the Leviathan anime coming in 2025, I’ll be doing two panels at Anime New York next weekend!

Friday Aug 23, 2024
7PM-8PM Panel Room 1
Qubic + Orange Present: New Show. Next Level. Experience “Leviathan”
Justin Leach
Scott Westerfeld
Yoshihiro Watanabe
Daigo Ikeda

Saturday Aug 24, 2024
11AM-11:45AM Panel Room 5
Leviathan: The impact of illustrated novels on storytelling
Scott Westerfeld
Justin Leach

Saturday Aug 24, 2024
4PM-5PM Autograph Area
Just me, signing whatever books you got!

Hope you New Yorkers can make it!

The post Anime NYC appeared first on Scott Westerfeld.

The Uglies trailer dropped yesterday, and it’s FULL of Easter eggs for fans of the book. Here is my frame-by-frame, along with some production notes.

But first, in case you missed it:

Yowza! Here are my notes!

Page numbers are for the new edition, with the cover by the amazing Aykut Aydogdu, but should be close for all editions.)

0:07
Joey King as Tally Youngblood! Joey read the books when she was little, and always wanted to live in that world. So she got famous and made it happen.

0:12
Tally’s city! In the foreground we have Uglyville, made of gray concrete. But across the river are the soaring buildings of New Pretty Town! You don’t get to live in the castle until you are pretty.

0:18
A lovely image of Tally in a field of the white weed, the genetically modified tiger orchid that has disrupted biomes across the continent.
(p162 “The Side You Despise”)

0:28
Dorm uniforms! Note that the uniforms are gray, to remind the uglies that they don’t deserve nice things.
(p94 “Operation”)

0:33
Laverne Cox as Dr. Cable! I really enjoyed meeting Laverne and talking about conceptions of beauty, femininity, and personal transformation. (We also discussed our fave East Village hangouts in the ’90s.)

0:37
Safety fireworks, “beautiful useless things,” are a symbol throughout the series. They look like normal fireworks, but have been rendered harmless, kinda like pretties. The New Pretty Town scenes are drenched in them!
(p4 “New Pretty Town”)

0:45
Love this glimpse of Tally’s morpho—a digital model of her post-surgery appearance. In a weird way, the uglies sitting around tuning their faces on screens is the most prophetic part of the book. I mean, Uglies came out in 2005. We had Photoshop back then, but instant filters weren’t a thing.
(pp 38-9 “Facing the Future”)

0:57
Chase Stokes as Peris! Peris’s nickname is Nose, so we gave Chase a big nose. Also, he was kinda too pretty to be an ugly. I mean, pretty much ALL actors are?

Except . . . even pretty people in this world are called uglies, unless they’ve had the operation.

0:58
Based upon a novel, which is by me! Available at all fine retailers.

1:00
Brianne Tju as Shay! What you can kinda see here is that Shay and Tally are chilling on their hoverboards, thirty feet in the air. This scene was actually shot with them suspended from cranes. Joey and Brianne became instant friends on set, which shines through in their performances.
(p31-7 “Wipe Out”)

1:04
Surgery tank. Peris is about to get a nose job.

1:07
Tally in a pig mask! From the party scene in New Pretty Town. Love it when random (though deeeeeply symbolic) things in a book make it into a movie.
(p10 “New Pretty Town”)

1:08
Pretty Peris. (Less nose, more abs!)

1:22
The wild! We had a gray, concrete Uglyville and a hyper-lurid New Pretty Town, so we had to also capture the beauty of the wild. “Nature, at least, didn’t need an operation to be beautiful. It just was.”
(p219 “Suspicion”)

1:27
Keith Powers as David! Keith did a great job making David charismatic enough to lead a revolution, while also giving him an outsider feel. After all, he’s the only non-city kid left in the entire world. (That’s why he has the only old-fashioned name.)

1:32
Glimpses of the Smoke in the background. All the buildings in the Smoke were real, inside and out, with sod roofs planted with actual grass for camouflage, and Smokey gear inside. A simply amazing set. Love the production design in this movie. Can’t wait till you see more.

But who’s that schmuck with the wheelbarrow? It’s full of books, and we’re in the Smoke, so it must be the Boss–the crotchety old librarian guy. (p188, “The Model”)

He is played by me.

I even had a line, which I wrote myself—secretly, so the cast’s reaction was a genuine WTF on the first take. But the line was cut in editing, because the Boss’s snark didn’t go with the positive emotion of Tally’s arrival in the Smoke.

Hollywood is cruel. I will take no further questions.

1:42
Hoverboarding on the ancient roller coaster—perhaps THE iconic Uglies scene. (pp 61-3 “The Rust Ruins”)

The hoverboards are a combination of CGI and practical rigs that allowed the actors to actually fly on wires! (More on hoverboards after Sep 13, on my TikTok and Insta.)

1:49
Jan Luis Castellano as Croy! He is a very lovable Croy.

1:58
In the book, we briefly meet the Rangers, environmental warriors who use vintage Rusty helicopters to burn out the white weed.
(p170 “Bug Eyes”)

In the movie, however, the Smokies have their own helicopter. Because Jan Luis wanted a flamethrower. Because flamethrowers.

2:12
THE SMOKE LIVES! (“Over the Edge” p352)

Yes, it does.

For more analysis, check out my TikTok about the trailer.

See you September 13, only on Netflix.

The post Uglies Trailer: Easter Eggs! appeared first on Scott Westerfeld.

Coming in 2025 from Netflix, the Leviathan trilogy will be an anime series!

I answer a few questions below.

The trilogy? They’re doing all three books?

Yep. They committed at the start to do the whole story. It’s all coming out in 2025.

Who’s involved?

Orange, best known for Beastars. The composers are Nobuko Toda and Kazuma Jinnouchi, with some songs by Joe Hisaishi.

How close is it to the books’ original vision?

The books’ illustrator, Keith Thompson, was brought onto the team at the start. The producers love him and his work. We wouldn’t have done it without him.

Were you involved?

Very! I was sent the scripts, the designs, the episodes as they came together. It’s mostly super faithful! (And it’s really cool when it varies from the books.)

2025? How are we suppose to wait a year?

I’ve been waiting three years! Click here to set a reminder button!

The post Leviathan Anime appeared first on Scott Westerfeld.

No release date yet. BUT THE UGLIES MOVIE IS ON THE NETFLIX APP!
To get a reminder when it’s out:

1. Log onto Netflix.
2. Search on “Uglies.” (Or just click here).
3. Select the Uglies thumbnail.
4. Click on Remind Me!

If there’s a like button in your country, click that too. Maybe we can convince them to move the release date up!

The post Uglies Movie: Closer! appeared first on Scott Westerfeld.

No release date yet. BUT THE UGLIES MOVIE IS ON THE NETFLIX APP!
To get a reminder when it’s out:

1. Log onto Netflix.
2. Search on “Uglies.” (Or just click here).
3. Select the Uglies thumbnail.
4. Click on Remind Me!

If there’s a like button in your country, click that too. Maybe we can convince them to move the release date up!

The post Uglies Move: Closer! appeared first on Scott Westerfeld.