In the city where I live, there are quite a few public bookshelves. Whenever I leave my apartment or just happen to pass by one of them, I check them. Some time in the winter of 2023, I did my usual round past the public bookshelf while going to the grocery store. Usually the books in there are literal trash, and it’s so rare to find a good book in good condition, let alone in English. Scythe by Neal Shusterman1 was such a find, the cover art was striking, and after reading the description, my interest was piqued. Dystopian is my thing. I found it on a Saturday morning.

Well, I read half the book by Sunday, and finished reading it within 5 days. Is it a *good* book? I think that’s a matter of debate, it has a few flaws here and there, like the completely and utterly unnecessary romance, but that’s just young adult fiction for you. Nevertheless, this book is SO well written and I really enjoyed reading it. It’s a very interesting, very dystopian concept with an extra dash of the macabre. This is a post-mortality world, in which people just don’t die anymore. They go through regular rejuvenating treatments, and whenever someone has a horrible accident or would die for some other reason, they are simply put back together. But how do you balance world population then? Well, that’s the job of the scythes.

I believe just one day into reading, I decided to order all the other books in the Arc of a Scythe series. Book 2 aka Thunderhead arrived fairly swiftly, and again I devoured this book.

What a strange ride it was. The first half of Thunderhead suffers a bit from pacing issues. Introducing new characters and spending a bit too much time of them instead of the main characters tended to get a bit too tedious for me.

Then halfway through the book, I was hit with a huge WTF moment, that made me question the rules of this universe. But what are the rules in a post-mortality society anyway? The return of Goddard was this WTF moment. He was supposed to be dead dead, and that was the highlight of book one. Bringing him back cheapens that… but in hindsight, also send a message about how you can seemingly never get rid of people like him. He’s very much a Trump-like character, and there will always be insane, power-hungry people like him.

A lot of this book is also a setup for Book 3 (I assume), and the most interesting plot line is left open. Let’s see how that ends.

Book 3, aka The Toll arrived a bit late. But once again, I absolutely devoured this book (the biggest of the series) in a manner of a few days.

The Toll was, like all books in the series, extremely well written an a joy to read. I love how it used “mystical” religious writings to establish its lore. And this is where it all comes together, and this universe becomes ever bigger.

I particularly enjoyed reading about how a seemingly ridiculous idea has grown into a full-fledged religion, including the most un-prophety prophet one could imagine. Even beyond the this religion (the tonists), this book has so many interesting things that give you food for thought. The Thunderhead seems like a benevolent ChatGPT, and it makes one wonder if this is a future we’re heading into – but I think ours will be much darker.

What could have been better was the pacing (again) – the story focuses a lot on some aspects of the story, but others, the ones you really want to know about, are few and far between.

I greatly enjoyed reading this series, as it evident from me having read the third volume, a 600+ page book, within two days.

But that’s not all folks, there is also a short story collection called Gleanings to expand the Arc of a Scythe universe. Gleanings has its highs and lows. I enjoyed some of the stories very much, especially those that were a bit closer to the main story, while a few of them were a bit too much out there. In particular, the stories of scythes being psychopaths didn’t really do much for me, there was already more than enough of that in the main arc, plus, from the way scythes are presented in Book 1, I would have preferred to learn a bit more about honorable scythes. IMHO Gleanings is skippable, but regardless it’s a nice addition to the trilogy, and makes this whole universe deeper and more alive.

Arc of a Scythe is a really well written and engaging series that I can highly recommend. While it’s aimed at young / new adults, there are so many interesting themes and concepts being explored here that will give you plenty to think about. I’ll definitely keep an eye on Neal Shusterman in the future as well, as he’s a very gifted author.