'Scythe' presents a series of ethical dilemmas that kept me invested in the story. I just rolled with the information I was given.) (Sure, you could poke some holes in this, but it's a YA science fiction novel. 2042 was the year the world decided to combine all the information that's currently stored in the 'cloud' into one massive artificial intelligence system known as the Thunderhead.Īs the Thunderhead immediately knew the collective knowledge of humanity, it was able to solve world hunger, wealth inequality, and all the other problems in the world. Even with beloved high fantasy series like ' Game of Thrones' or ' The Lord of the Rings,' it's too difficult for me to keep track of all the different magic, characters, family trees, and histories that are crucial to the plot, making them personally not very enjoyable for me to read.īut in 'Scythe,' the dystopia (or utopia, depending on how you see it) is built swiftly and easily: It's reminiscent of the world we currently live in, but a few hundred years into the future. I generally have a problem with the elaborate world-building in most fantasy and science-fiction novels. The fantastical world feels a lot like our own, making it easy for non-fantasy fans to follow along. This novel is fast-paced, involves excellent world-building, and - you heard it here first! - has the potential to become the next ' Hunger Games.' Here are the three things I loved the most about 'Scythe': 'Scythe' has great reviews - 84% of its nearly 200,000 reviews on Goodreads are 4- and 5-stars - and I couldn't agree more. I'm not the only one who's obsessed with this book. As they begin to understand the intricacies of scythedom, their journeys are complicated by a stipulation: Only one will become a scythe - and their first act will be to glean the other. Reading 'Scythe,' the story follows two reluctant teenagers, Citra and Rowan, who are chosen to apprentice a scythe, even though neither of them wants the role. Before I opened the book, all I knew was that it's about a world where humanity has conquered mortality and now the only way humans die is by the hands of a scythe - humans who are designated, trained, and spend their lives in charge of 'gleaning' people for population control.

Thunderhead book series