Favorite Author Fridays

I love books! I love reading and authors and book fairs and libraries and just books themselves. I am a collector of books, especially young adult literature and children's literature. I often find myself recommending books to any teen I catch doing anything besides reading or if they are reading I'm often telling them books similar to what they're reading that I think they'll like. What can I say, I'm bossy. Anyway in celebration of bossy, over-enthusiastic book people I will start 'Favorite Author Fridays'. I will post some info about one of my favorite authors and the books of theirs I recommend. Not all of these books will be every age appropriate but I will try to mark them as I think appropriate. So here we go...

Scott Westerfeld

Scott Westerfeld is a well-known Young Adult Fiction writer. He specifically writes mostly science fiction in that genre and has won several awards for his series.

Below is a bibliography, books in red are those I've read and would recommend. (If he had books I had read and would not recommend I would put those in a different color but there are none)

Polymorph (1997) - adult (not as in questionable just a book for grown ups)
Fine Prey (1998) - adult
Evolution's Darling (2000) - adult
The Risen Empire (2003)
The Killing of Worlds (2003)
Midnighters 1: The Secret Hour (2004)
So Yesterday (2005) - read parts and loved it, just have to find it at my local book store
Midnighters 2: Touching Darkness (2005)
Uglies (2005) - really great
Peeps (2005) - my favorite with Last Days. About 'vampires' being caused by a virus. Very biological and creepy.
Pretties (2005) - after Uglies
Midnighters 3: Blue Noon (2006)
Specials (2006) - after Pretties
The Last Days (2006)
Extras (2007) - after Specials but with different main characters
The Guide to the Uglies (2008)
Leviathan (2009)



He is married to Justine Larbalestier, also a young adult author, and they live half the year in Australia and half the year in New York. He is part of a group of young adult authors that are all friends and go on trips together and write together including Maureen Johnson and Holly Black.

Like many young adult authors he keeps a blog and I think those blogs are hilarious. It's such a fun way to get to know an author.

Anyway Scott is one of my favorite authors. I think John Scalzi sums him up best in this quote about young adult lit in general (and how many adults are missing out on it):

"I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again: The most significant SF writer right now is Scott Westerfeld, whom it seems most adult science fiction fans still have not read and indeed barely know exists. In a sane world, Westerfeld would be a hero to adult science fiction readers, because he’s pretty much single-handedly flown the flag for science fiction to teenagers, thus saving the genre’s bacon for another 20 years. But: He’s YA. So he doesn’t count.

Now, don’t feel sorry for Scott because of this. He’s crying all the way to the bank, he is, because by any sane measure he’s almost certainly the single best-selling science fiction author out there right now. The people to feel bad for are all the adult science fiction readers who haven’t read his Uglies series and by extension are missing the formative SFnal experience of an entire generation of readers — which also happen to be excellent books. Why Scott hasn’t even been nominated for a Hugo yet is unfathomable today, and I expect will be seen as unforgivable in 20 years, when many of his readers have become published writers."