Scythe

Book Cover

Justification

I choose Scythe for my Science Fiction selection for this blog. Before beginning this semester, I had not heard of this trilogy. After watching the example book trailer for this novel, I was intrigued by the storyline. A world free of death, hunger, and illness where the only way to die was at the hands of a scythe. I was curious. Scythe has also been well regarded in the literary community. It was selected as a Printz Honor book and has been favorably reviewed by numerous journals including a starred review from Booklist. After reading these reviews, I was ready to see what all the fuss was about.

Evaluation

The first quality of great writing seen in Scythe was the setting. Shusterman masterfully thought out and created a whole other reality. Throughout the novel we learn more about this post-modern world that loosely resembles our own. The cloud has become the Thunderhead. People have access to all the information they could ever hope to find. Death and disease are extinct. People can be revived at reviving centers if they do become “deadish.” No one counts their ages anymore, and people can live many full lifetimes. To counteract this potential immortality scythes have been set apart to “glean” or kill those that they select. Shusterman’s attention to detail and description of this reality is exceptional. Throughout the plot we learn more and more about what it would be like to live in such a world from both the perspective of a scythe and a mere citizen.

The second quality of high-quality writing exhibited in this novel are the unexpected insights we receive as readers. The first of these unexpected insights comes in the form of the scythe journal entries that proceed each chapter. In this world, the scythes are required to keep what they call gleaning journals. These journals are uploaded to the Thunderhead and are accessible to anyone willing to look. Most of the time these journals go unnoticed and are seemingly unimportant, but Shusterman highlights them before each chapter. They share personal thoughts and insights from scythes. Most of the entries we read are from Honorable Scythe Curie, also known as the Grand Dame of Death. We do get snippets from other scythes as well that help us to understand not all scythes view their duties in the same way. Through the content of these journal entries we learn about the scythe’s character and values. We also see a fuller picture of this in the names they select for themselves once they enter Scythedom. Your old name is no longer used once you become a scythe. A new name is chosen from the Age of Mortality as they refer to it. The names chosen by the scythes reveals something of their true natures. These insights help to describe our characters and feed in to the tension of the story.

The final quality of excellent writing is the tension that is built throughout the story. There are two types of tension that can be seen in the text. The first is between the scythes and the rest of the citizens. Scythes are a part of the community and yet are set apart. The same rules do not apply to scythes. Even their clothing is set apart from everyone else. They are marked. They can grant immunity or take a life as they see fit. As a result, people are terrified whenever a scythe enters a room. When our two main characters are selected for apprenticeship under a scythe, we see how their families and communities treat them differently and ultimately withdraw from them. The second and more focused upon tension is the one that divides the Scythedom. There are two schools of thought within the scythes. The first is what is sometimes referred to as the old guard. Those who feel a deep and moral obligation to glean those they select but do so with reverence and mercy. The other is just the opposite. They believe that gleaning should be done with flair and enjoyment. “I am a man who chooses to glean with pride, not shame. I choose to embrace life, even as I deal death. Make no mistake-we scythes are above the law because we deserve to be. I see a day when new scythes will be chosen not because of some esoteric moral high ground, but because they enjoy the taking f a life. After all, this is a perfect world-and in a perfect world, don’t we all have the right to love what we do?” (Shusterman, 2016, p. 163). These opposing sides are on a dramatic crash course as the plot of the novel unfolds.

Response

(C) I viewed this book as an interesting case study of our human nature. It seems that the goal of society is to rid the world of its problems: hunger, war, death, illness; but what is the result? For me, this book exhibited the dark side of human nature. Even in a society free of all troubles, we still see the dark side of our morality. The Thunderhead has all knowledge that people could ever want to access, and yet largely what is accessed is frivolous. The same can be said in our own society. In our pockets we carry the Internet that holds a great swath of information, yet what do we look at? Cat videos? Social media posts? (D) The things that are truly important to me in our human world have been stripped away in this novel. Love, relationships, family; as each person gets older and rounds the corner to reset these things hold less of the importance they once had. No one fears death and their own mortality anymore. It has become a thing of the past largely. Ultimately, it was a sad picture of what many would view is the utopia that those before us have longed for. Ironically, it is the scythes who feel the weight of morality more than the citizens. (F) I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel. It was an interesting spin on the dystopian, futuristic, science fiction genre. Shusterman’s writing expertly depicted a world that is not so far off from our own reality to be terrifying. His characters were relatable and likeable. They provided us insight as to what life would be like in this world.

Conclusion

Scythe is the exciting first novel in the trilogy. The whole novel I was dying to know what would become of Citra and Rowan as they were pitted against one another in their training. Shusterman’s “utopian” society exposed the underbelly of human nature in a way that was unique and compelling. I cannot wait to read the subsequent books in the series. This book would be a perfect recommendation for readers who enjoyed Divergent and Hunter Games.

APA Citation

Shusterman, N. (2016). Scythe. New York: Simon & Schuster.