What a strange ride. The first half of the book 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, you're hit with a huge WTF moment, that makes you 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), …
What a strange ride. The first half of the book 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, you're hit with a huge WTF moment, that makes you 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.
I can't seem to bring the Scythe-plot and the Thunderhead-plot together. To me they seem like two stories set in the same universe, but mostly disconnected from one another. I don't see how this trilogy can end in anything else than death and destruction, the very same concepts, Scythedom and Thunderhead were meant to prevent. I do hope the last installment connects the two plots much tighter and doesn't just revert humankind to dying and self-governing again.
Without the burden of world-building, the second book in this fantastically macabre and surprisingly smart YA series dives into plot, character, and philosophical wonderings, leaving the reader dying to get to the bitter and shocking end.
I really need to review this, don't I? No, just read Robin's Review it says it all in so many great words.
And then there's Texas
This book continues the story from [b: Scythe|28954189|Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1)|Neal Shusterman|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1456172676s/28954189.jpg|49179216]. Both Citra and Rowan have moved on from being Scythe apprentices. Citra, now Scythe Anastasia, has remained with Scythe Curie and Rowan is on the run but has made a name for himself as Scythe Lucifer by gleaning dishonorable Scythes. This story deepens the conflict between the traditional Scythes and the New Order followers of crazy (and dead) Scythe Goddard.
This book has a lot of interesting bits about the Thunderhead and a lot of passages from its point of view. Despite the Thunderhead being depicted as a generally benevolent AI who is ruling mankind perfectly, these passages give a scary insight into how the AI works and offer up …
I really need to review this, don't I? No, just read Robin's Review it says it all in so many great words.
And then there's Texas
This book continues the story from [b: Scythe|28954189|Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1)|Neal Shusterman|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1456172676s/28954189.jpg|49179216]. Both Citra and Rowan have moved on from being Scythe apprentices. Citra, now Scythe Anastasia, has remained with Scythe Curie and Rowan is on the run but has made a name for himself as Scythe Lucifer by gleaning dishonorable Scythes. This story deepens the conflict between the traditional Scythes and the New Order followers of crazy (and dead) Scythe Goddard.
This book has a lot of interesting bits about the Thunderhead and a lot of passages from its point of view. Despite the Thunderhead being depicted as a generally benevolent AI who is ruling mankind perfectly, these passages give a scary insight into how the AI works and offer up the possibility that all is not well with the AI either (that all is not well within Scythedom became more than obvious in book one and continues to be shown throughout this book)
The troubles the AI faces (or rather humanity faces) become obvious when Scythe Faraday - during his quest to save Scythedom from itself via some mythical plan of the founding scythes that he has yet to discover - finds something that makes the Thunderhead re-evaluate certain ideas about itself namely that it knows everything, discovering that the Marshall Islands have been hidden from it, disturb the Thunderhead deeply. It turns out the AI turns emotional when it comes to certain base assumptions.
Yet am I not quantifiably more benevolent than the various versions of God?
Personally, I enjoyed the Thunderhead's passages most in this book. It's arc is slow and subtle but shows clearly that while it may think it is perfect, in that arrogance lies the seed for ... its downfall. But before that lies everything it tells us of how it is managing Earth.
The illusion of inefficiency serves the specific purpose of creating annoyance around which unsavories can bond.
The author puts all three human protagonists - Greyson Tolliver makes his first appearance early on in the book - into their own crucibles. Especially Greyson gets it bad no one who knew what he was doing. Greyson’s cover was so deep it had swallowed him whole—and not even the Thunderhead could pull him out.. While I worried a lot for Citra, what Rowan has to go through is definitely... worst of all three of them. At that point where Rowan is captured by Scythe Rand, Citra is about to glean the actor and Greyson has fully turned into Slayd I had to stop reading for a bit because it was clear that from that point on things could only go wrong and downward. And they do.
It all pivots on the principle of the Thunderhead not being able to interfere with certain matters - Scythes and unsavories - and the Thunderhead not being present in certain locations.
It all ends with a big bang (or is it a clang?) of a cliffhanger and proof that the Thunderhead is fallible I think that marking every one as unsavory with a big cacophony qualifies as throwing a tantrum and that is certainly not the mark of perfection the AI aspires to and that the Tonists were always onto something. I am glad that Greyson is there for the end... I loved that part of the ending and can't wait to see how this will turn out in the next book and what Faraday is going to find... and I really really want to know what happened to all those who died on Scythe Island and how many will make into the next book besides Rowan and Citra, who were hopefully saved by the safe they were locked into.
It's a fast-paced sequel that nearly delivered everything I hoped for and then some more. I do not remember the first book being so anxiety-inducing that I had to stop reading in the middle. But with this being the sequel I guess I am just more invested in the characters.
