At the end of “Specials,” the third book in the “Uglies” trilogy, Tally has decided to keep an eye on the world and make sure that as the people start enjoying their newfound freedom of thinking, they won’t make dumb decisions that will ultimately destroy their environment. She clearly remembers learning about the days when people burned trees, and doesn’t want civilization to return to such a backward state of thinking.
In “Extras,” the spin-off to the series, we meet Aya. A young woman who lives in Japan, she’s part of a whole new culture, one that no longer inflicts surgery on the people, but instead measures their worth by their popularity. The more people talk about you, the more important you are, and the higher your ranking, the more merit points you get. You can trade those points in for a better place to live, for cooler clothes – anything you want, practically. Aya’s ranking is so low, she’s positive she’’ll never be noticed by anyone.
There’s a group of girls who don’t care about their ratings – in fact, they do everything they can to keep out of the public eye. They go out at night and do dangerous tricks, and Aya wants to learn more. In this high-tech world, everyone has a feed – sort of what blogs are to us, in our day – and she wants to post the most remarkable story ever. Surely, that way, her rating will rise. She decides to hang out with these dangerous girls to see what kind of story she can get, and ends up uncovering something entirely different – beings that look like extraterrestrials, stockpiling supplies deep inside a mountain. This will be the story of the century, but when she posts it, she’s not prepared for all the side effects of instant fame.
Tally Youngblood hears what’s happened and comes out of hiding to help Aya deal with everything that’s going on. Together, they discover that the story goes even deeper than Aya ever imagined.
A great book to continue our fascination with Scott Westerfeld’s world, you’ll enjoy “Extras.”
(This book was published in 2007 by Simon and Schuster.)
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