Scythe
You can live as long as you want. You can reset your body if you wish to be young again. You will not die a natural death. You can die. And you can come back. Unless a scythe comes to glean you.
Thunderhead
Some of the scythes enjoy the killing a little too much. Is it murder or gleaning? Thunderhead, the AI overseeing the world sees, but there is little it can do. It cannot meddle with the scythes.
Two books of the trilogy are out, the third one is due 2019. I cannot wait.
Scythe is a Michael Prince Honor book and I usually don’t write about those because there’s already heaps of praise on them. I like to pick out more obscure books, but this one was on the South Carolina Book Award Nominee List and I read it, and I was like, wow.
The first book, Scythe, introduces us to two apprentices, Citra and Rowan. They didn’t set out to be scythes, don’t think they are cut out for it, but that makes them good candidates. They are chosen by the same Scythe and only one will become a scythe and the other set free to go on with their life, but that’s not what happens.
I won’t say much about Thunderhead because I don’t want to give anything away, but there are a number of OMG moments that left me gobsmacked.
This is chilling take of what many may see as paradise. No disease. No death. Easy work. But what happens then?
One can use either book in school, or both, to teach about ethics.
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