Scythe

Scythe

By Neal Shusterman

Read in 8th grade

Book 1 in series

Read book 2! Thunderhead (coming soon)

Read book 3! The Toll

    First book in Arc of a Scythe series. It takes place in a world past death, without disease or aging. Pain nanites can regrow limbs, and if you are killed in an accident, you are revived. There is no politics, because the world is taken care of by an AI called the Thunderhead. It keeps the world running, and every move is calculated so it is never wrong. Its mission: Protect humanity. At all costs. So how is the population kept in check if no one dies? Scythedom. This group is beholden to no laws, and the Thunderhead must stay out of its way as a part of its fundamental programming. These people go around and glean people, and can also grant immunity for a year. They can take whatever they want, and everyone fears/respects them. 

    One day, Scythe Faraday shows up at Citra Terranova's house and eats a meal. Afterward, he asks for a knife. Her family is terrified, but he gleans the person next door and grants Citra's mother immunity. Rowan Damisch is sitting at his friend Tyger's bedside after he splatted from hundreds of feet up. At school, Faraday shows up to glean the high school quarterback. Rowan stays with him for emotional support. Faraday notes his compassion. Later, he is ridiculed, accused of being with the quarterback for immunity.

    Later, Scythe Faraday sends mysterious invitations to both kids, meeting them and showing them a museum about the age of mortality to teach them how people were more compassionate when death was a thing. He tells them he wants them to apprentice for a year. Both are reluctant at first, but eventually concede, knowing that compassion will make them good Scythes and that it will buy their families immunity. They learn about many things normal people would never know, and accompany Faraday on gleanings. He picks people based on accidents that normally would have killed them, and sometimes even allows them to pick their method of gleaning.

    Of course, like any good book, there is division within Scythedom. A group of bejeweled Scythes board a plane a commit a mass gleaning, looking as though they enjoy it, which goes against the Scythe Code. These are new order scythes. They go against the good, old guard scythes like Faraday, but their numbers are rapidly growing.

    Citra and Rowan discover some unfortunate effects of their apprenticeship. When Citra attends a family wedding, her relatives seem distant, which is the way life will be as a Scythe. Faraday also asks Rowan to pick his own gleaning target. He has a difficult time, especially when he tells the man how it will happen. Faraday is pleased, knowing that gleaning should never be easy. The group of bad Scythes shows up at a food court for another mass gleaning. They glean everyone except for one pudgy little girl. Her name is Esme, and her true parentage could have massive implications.

    Citra and Rowan continue to learn until the first annual Conclave. There, they will be tested on what they have learned so far to make sure they are well qualified. The usual happenings occur, then arrive at a complaint toward Scythe Goddard, the mass gleaner. It is anonymous, and Faraday believes Goddard created the complaint himself so he could defend his actions. Then, the festivities drone on until the very end. One of Goddard's followers complains that Faraday shouldn't be allowed to have two apprentices. As a solution, he proposes that the winner of the two glean the other as their first action. Having no choice, Faraday agrees.

    Later, High Blade Xenocrates, overseer of the MidMerican Scythedom, shows up. Faraday has self gleaned to release Rowan and Citra from his apprenticeship. They want to go home, but two Scythes have offered to take them on. Citra goes to Scythe Curie, while Rowan goes to Goddard. Curie is a good Scythe, although Citra does question her method. She gleans without warning, choosing those who seem tired of their lives. She gives Citra the task of finding the gleaned person's family for dinner. Citra asks why she chose her, and Curie says it is because she couldn't let Goddard pit Rowan against Citra. She also makes Citra confess about the lie she told at the Conclave as a test - she pushed a girl in front of a truck. Scythe Curie has her apologize, and Citra realizes that even though the Thunderhead saw her do it, it didn't do anything because it wasn't a heavy crime. She decides to search the Thunderhead to see if she can find out whether Faraday really self gleaned.

    As time passes, Citra becomes more of an old-guard scythe while Rowan is constantly having Goddard's ideas drilled into him. But he vows not to fall for it and to fail his final test to save Citra. Meanwhile, Citra has found evidence of a cover-up, showing Faraday might have been assassinated. But all the digging around is bad for her because it implicates her of killing him. You see, the Scythedom found a journal page that Faraday wrote when Curie was his apprentice. She was sneaking around because she loved him and got caught. Xenocrates thinks it is about Citra and tries to imprison her. Curie sneaks her out of the house and sends her to the address of Faraday's killer.

    Rowan attends Goddard's extravagant parties, where he runs into Tyger, who is now a party dude. Xenocrates is also there, and falls into the pool. For some reason, Goddard isn't respecting Xenocrates, and it turns out Esme is the reason. She is Xenocrates's illegitimate daughter. This is how Goddard is slowly taking over Scythedom. Rowan, though has a plan. When Goddard gleans a bunch of Tonists (new radical religion, super complicated), one of his underscythes self gleans because she can't take the brutality anymore. Angered, Rowan kills Goddard and burns him, the only way he can't be resurrected. When he is interrogated later, he pretends it was all an accident, and since Xenocrates knows that Rowan knows about Esme, he lets him get away with it.

    Meanwhile, Citra shoots Faraday's killer. But it is Faraday! He faked his death to release Rowan and Citra, which didn't exactly work out. They hatch a plan so she and Rowan won't have to fight each other. Rowan fails his final test on purpose, gleaning in cold blood. Citra does it with care. When the day comes, Citra is given her Scythe ring and told to glean Rowan. But she punches him instead, getting his blood on the ring and granting him immunity. He then escapes with Faraday. The book ends with a journal entry from Citra, now Scythe Anastasia. Rowan is killing all the new order scythes and wreaking havoc. His name? Scythe Lucifer.