query: When did Scott Westerfeld create Uglies?
passage: Uglies
Uglies is a 2005 science fiction novel by Scott Westerfeld. It is set in a future post scarcity dystopian world in which everyone is considered an "ugly", but then turned "Pretty" by extreme cosmetic surgery when they reach the age 16. It tells the story of teenager Tally Youngblood who rebels against society's enforced conformity, after her newfound friends Shay and David show her the downsides to becoming a "Pretty".
passage: Uglies series
The Surge (also called The Operation) is an internationally standardized and performed medical procedure mandated by the new society that plays a central part in the plot of the Uglies series. The Surge consists of many steps, taking place over a single twenty-four-hour period, half of which is spent in anaesthetic stasis. The Surge is mostly cosmetic, but also involves major surgery being performed on the nervous, immune, and neurological systems. The point of The Surge itself is to promote and inspire peace among its recipients, with the idea that beauty ultimately trumps all forms of inequality and bigotry - Things like race and orientation don't matter when everyone is beautiful. The Surge is performed at the age of sixteen on every citizen in the world (although some cities perform it at age 18, and is hinted to be performed at 15 in some) and is strictly regulated by The International Committee For Morphological Standards ("The Pretty Committee"), which converges yearly to exchange notes on things such as innovations, anaesthesia techniques, and standard levels of attraction worldwide (because of the cities attitude towards codependence, these meetings are mostly just to make sure every city is making their recipients the same kind of pretty, and to not have any one city have more attractive post-ops).