Impostors is the first book in a Spin-Off series of Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. It is set approximately two generations after the events of the main series and consists of four books.
Frey and Rafi are inseparable... two edges of the same knife. But Frey's very existence is a secret.
Frey is Rafi's twin sister — and her body double. Their powerful father has many enemies, and the world has grown dangerous as the old order falls apart. So while Rafi was raised to be the perfect daughter, Frey has been taught to kill. Her only purpose is to protect her sister, to sacrifice herself for Rafi if she must.
When her father sends Frey in Rafi's place as collateral in a precarious deal, she becomes the perfect impostor — as poised and charming as her sister. But Col, the son of a rival leader, is getting close enough to spot the killer inside her. As the deal starts to crumble, Frey must decide if she can trust him with the truth... and if she can risk becoming her own person.
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The second book in the series, Shatter City, was released in 2019; the third, Mirror's Edge, was released in 2021, and the fourth, Youngbloods in 2022.
This series provides examples of:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Pulse knives utterly vaporise anything they hit. Though it is something of a subversion since Frey says they aren't very sharp when turned off.
- Abusive Parents: Frey and Rafi's father, to Frey, through being The Unfavorite. he's never treated her like a daughter, embraced her, or shown her any affection. Shatter City reveals that he didn't even name her- 'Frey' came from Frey attempting to write 'Rafia' and getting the letters in the wrong order, as well as having bad handwriting."This is not normal."
- Action Girl: Frey.
- After the End: After the end of the Rusty era and after the Mind Rain.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The featured AIs range in their levels of power, sentience, and morality. The city-mind of Paz is always helpful and takes human privacy very seriously. The city of Diego, not so much, and the AI born from Frey and Rafia's father...
- Arc Words:
- "She's not coming to save us."
- "This is not normal."
- Artificial Hybrid: Boss X had himself radically surged into a wolf-human cross.
- Becoming the Mask: Happens off and on with Frey.
- Big Bad: Frey and Rafi's father.
- Bilingual Bonus: There are several lines in French and a few in Spanish.
- Body Double: Frey for Rafi.
- The Cameo: Andrew Simpson Smith.
- Chekhov's Gunman: In a quite literal example, the assassin from the first chapter of Impostors is an extremely important character. Not only is he Boss X's dead boyfriend, he's Frey and Rafia's brother.
- Combat Pragmatist: Frey when she kills the unarmed Naya with a pulse knife. Also Rafi and Frey's father when he sends a missile into the house that Frey is in to destroy his enemies. As well as putting a choker armed with a bomb around Rafi's neck to keep her captive.
- Crapsack World: Shreve. Frey and Rafi's father is so hated as a leader that his heir needs a body double when she even goes out to a party. He uses old Rusty weapons to quash any sign of rebellion and spy dust, which is illegal in most other cities, to spy on every moment of his citizen's lives.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Frey vs Naya at the end of Impostors. Ordinarily, Naya would beat her, but Naya's unarmed and Frey has a pulse knife. Naya's dead in seconds.
- Deceptively Human Robots: The city-mind of Diego often uses a humanoid avatar to communicate, but its expression and reactions soon give it away as being an AI.
- The AI plot in the fourth book involves them getting hold of sufficient observational human data to correct the tiny Uncanny Valley mistakes and create completely undetectable androids.
- Despotism Justifies the Means: Frey and Rafi's father. His methods are dangerous to the planet, and there's an implied threat hanging over all of his actions since the planet has already faced one end from past humans using these same methods. But, as Frey says, "My father will have his way."
- Dystopia: Shreve is a classic example.
- Earpiece Conversation: Cyranos, which dispense information.
- Eco-Terrorist: The rebels that have taken up Tally's cause.
- Fog of Doom: One of the purposes of Frey's pulse knife is its ability to vaporise furniture to provide her a cover of mist in event of an attack.
- Future Slang: Continues in the fashion of Uglies.
- Graffiti of the Resistance: Frey sees several symbols and the words "She's not coming to save us" and realises they were left by the rebels.
- Later, when infiltrating Shreve, she discovers a world of hidden graffiti in the 'palimpsest' and finds that rebellion is far more common than she imagined.
- Hoist by Their Own Petard: Frey and Rafia's older brother Seanan was held hostage by rebels who wanted their father to resign his post. When he refused, Seanan was never seen again and was assumed murdered. As a result, their father had Frey and Rafia made- a new heir to the city, and a body double to keep the heir safe. And when Seanan- not dead, but raised by the rebels to hate his father- came back and tried to kill him, Frey did exactly what she was trained to do on her father's orders and killed her brother.
- Hope Spot: In Shatter City, Rafia reveals that Seanan wasn't killed after he was kidnapped, he was raised by the rebels, so there's a chance that the twins could find him. Except there isn't, because he's the assassin who Frey killed.
- Hourglass Plot: By the end of the novel, Frey is the one by her father's side, fully in character as Rafia. Rafia is the one that escaped with the rebels, and is pretending to be Frey.
- Hover Board: Sees frequent use.
- Ignored Confession: In Impostors, Frey tries to tell Col that she's actually Rafia's twin sister. Col, however, thinks that her 'sister' is actually an imaginary friend/split personality that 'Rafia' made up to help her deal with her stressful life. It isn't until he sees the real Rafia on a live newsfeed when Frey is right next to him that he realises that no, there really is two of them.
- I Just Want to Be You: Frey realises in Shatter City that Rafia wants to be her.
- La Résistance: The rebels.
- Little "No": Frey when she thinks that her father has caught up to her and her allies.
- The Lost Lenore: Boss X joined the rebels for a man. Unfortunately, that man was the assassin Frey killed in the first part of Impostors.
- Love Hurts: Pretty much every romantic relationship in the books comes to a bad end. David and Tally broke up, Rafia and Riggs are at least estranged, X lost Seanan a long time ago, and Frey watched Col die.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Shatter City, Dona Oliver tells Frey that after the speech she and Rafia made in Impostors, Shreve would have overthrown their father, but 'Rafia' appearing with her father and acting like everything was fine completely derailed that.
- No Full Name Given: Frey and Rafi among other characters.
- No Name Given: Frey and Rafia's father is never named.
- Not Quite the Right Thing: Youngbloods deals largely in consequences and ambiguities. Everything the 'heroes' do has negative consequences for someone, leads to other disasters that might be worse. So what is right? By the end, Tally has lost the status of 'hero' among the public and Frey has started to forgive Rafia.
- Offing the Offspring: Frey speculates in Shatter City that her father has been trying to kill her because she unknowingly killed her brother.
- Sequel Non-Entity: Tally has mysteriously gone missing, and there are now rebels guarding the wild for her cause.
- However, she returns as a major character in the fourth book, Youngbloods.
- Summon to Hand: Frey's pulse knife.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Frey was raised to be Rafia's body double and bodyguard, so her education revolves around combat and defence. Rafia was raised to be the heir to the city, so her education revolves around diplomacy, history and everything else a future leader needs. While Frey has imitated Rafia before, it's only been for small amounts of time- so when she's required to pretend to be Rafia for two months in Impostors, nobody thinks she can pull it off because she simply doesn't know everything Rafia does.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Frey and Rafi respectively.
- Trick Arrow: Col Palafox has exploding arrows.
- The Unfavorite: Frey and Rafia's father regards Frey as a body double only, and has never treated her like a daughter, embraced her, or shown her any affection. Shatter City reveals that he didn't even name her- 'Frey' came from Frey attempting to write 'Rafia' and getting the letters in the wrong order, as well as having bad handwriting.
- Wham Line: From Shatter City: "The assassin. His name was Seanan."
