Extras - Audio Book Review

Audiobook Reviews from Audiobook-Heaven

Title: Extras
Series: Uglies, book 4
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Publisher: Recorded Books
Narrator: Carine Montbertrand
Duration: 11 hours, 36 minutes
Copyright: 2007
Genres: science fiction, action, young adult
Filed in: Audiobook reviews

THE GIST: hundreds of years ago, an unknown agent released a plague upon the world, a plague that affected only petroleum products, rendering them completely inert. Having no oil to burn, modern civilization completely collapsed. The powers that rose from the ashes of that old world came up with a brilliant plan to make sure nothing like that ever happened again: they would make everyone pretty. When everyone was pretty, they theorized, all animosity and competition between people would be eliminated and the whole world would live in harmony. The plan seemed to be working pretty well. No more hunger, no more war, and the world’s natural resources were protected and preserved. The world truly became a utopia.

What the governments neglected to tell their citizens was that the most important part of the “pretty” operation, was the brain surgery. Minds were altered removing all aggressive tendencies, making everyone docile and compliant. A little like sheep in other words. Then someone found out the truth. One teenage girl who couldn’t wait to become pretty on her sixteenth birthday found out what was really going on. One girl who thought the world should know the truth. One girl who stood against the status quo. That girl was Tally Youngblood. Tally and her friends, a clique known as the Cutters, toppled what is now referred to as the “mind-reign", and disappeared into urban legend, vowing to returnany time humanity began to threaten the planet again.

Now it is three years later, and humanity, stifled for so many generations, has experienced an explosion of free thinking. One city in Japan has gone so far as to develop its own economy, based entirely on reputation. Every person in the city has his or her own net feed. The more people you can get to watch your feed, the higher your face-rank will be and thus, the more merits you will earn. It is considered highly prestigious to be one of the top 1,000 faces. Anything less and you are just an Extra, a term taken from the ancient art of film-making.

Fifteen-year-old Aya Fuse, whose face-rank is down around the half million mark, is desperate to become famous, and she thinks she has finally found a way to do it. By pure chance, Aya witnessed a clique known as the Sly Girls, thought by most people to be nothing more than rumour, mag-lev train surfing. If she can catch them on film, they could be her ticket to stardom.

Aya manages to catch up with the Sly Girls and actually goes mag-lev surfing with them, but in the process, she stumbles onto a much bigger story. The mag-lev train they are surfing makes an unexpected stop in a mountain tunnel, where the girls witness some strange, inhuman looking creatures unloading cargo from the train, and taking it through a secret passage in the tunnel wall.

Returning the following night, Aya and the Sly Girls enter the secret door and find a cavernous room filled with huge cylinders of metal. It's a bit strange to see all that metal with the recent shortage the world is experiencing. Exploring further, they find a tremendous shaft running all the way up and out of the mountain. This proves to be a mass driver, a launching device used to send objects into outer space. The girls are convinced that these Inhumans are planning to launch the metal cylinders only to drop them onto cities. The impact of the heavy slugs from that altitude would be nothing less than catastrophic.

Aya kicks the story on her feed, creating a media frenzy and launching her own face-rank right up into the top twenty. Her moment of glory is short-lived, however, when she receives a ping from the most famous face in all the world, Tally Youngblood. The message is short and to the point, “Run and hide. We’re on our way.” Aya is confused, but she quickly finds out why Tally is so concerned when she, her brother Hiro, friend Ren, and recent acquaintance Frizz are attacked by the Inhumans. After a narrow escape and a thrilling hover-board chase, the group finally find a safe haven in a highly secured building.

The Cutters, Tally, Shay, and Fausto, don’t take long to arrive on the scene. They make a truly spectacular entrance which I will not reveal here, and Tally immediately goes into action. Her plan is to get captured by the Inhumans so they can be taken to their base of operation which turns out to be the island of Singapore. Once there, the seven adventurers discover that there is far more to this story than they ever imagined. Maybe the Inhumans aren’t the bad guys after all.

MY THOUGHTS: When I picked up “Extras" at the library, I was excited about another Tally Youngblood audio book, but didn't really find it here. "Extras" is set three years after the end of the “Uglies” trilogy and while Tally plays an important part, she is not the main character. Also the Tally Youngblood in this story is kind of scary and crazy. Still, I liked Westerfeld’s visions of the future, just as I did in the previous books. I found the idea of a reputation economy particularly interesting. Could this be the future of blogging?

"Extras" has plenty of Scott Westerfeld's trademark hover-board chases as well. No matter how many times he does it, they're still thrilling.

Here’s a question for you: would you give up your free will if it meant that all war, hunger, and poverty in the world would be eradicated?

NARRATOR: Carine Montbertrand narrated the first three Tally Youngblood audio books, “Uglies”, “Pretties", and "Specials", and I was glad to see her back for "Extras.” She does a pretty decent job of differentiating between the characters and even does a fair job with the voices of the boys.

Carine Montbertrand has narrated over 40 audio books and is a published author herself. I think I'll see if my library has any of her books.

FINAL WORD: If you haven’t read the “Uglies” trilogy, don't worry about it. "Extras" is set in the same world but it is a separate story unto itself. If you like "Extras" you can read the trilogy as prequels to get the background on Tally Youngblood. I highly recommend anything by Scott Westerfeld. This is my fourth Westerfeld audio book and they've all been very entertaining.

TRY THESE OTHER AUDIOBOOK REVIEWS:
“Uglies” by Scott Westerfeld
“Pretties” by Scott Westerfeld
“Specials” by Scott Westerfeld
“Extras” by Scott Westerfeld


If you liked this audiobook review, you can purchase the audiobook here:
Get "Uglies", The Collector's Set: Uglies, Pretties, Specials, Extras from Amazon.com

This audiobook review is based on the unabridged audio book.
Audio book review by Steven Brandt
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