1/21/24 - Completed Scythe, Book 1
Tuesday, January 21st, 2025
Today, I finished Scythe by Neal Shusterman. I started yesterday, on the 20th, and got more than halfway through. A few months ago, I picked up Scythe, after reading the Unwind series because it was made by the same author. Anyway, the first time I opened it I hadn't really gotten deep in, just when Scythe Faraday visited both Rowan and Citra's homes. But now, I realize that the story is a lot more complex, with corruption slowly spreading throught the Scythedom. The politics and sly maneuvers of the scythes reminds me a lot of the books that I have read which involve a royal court, like Red Queen and especially Throne of Glass.
First of all, the setting, and the situation the world was in was extremely thought-provoking. A world where there is virtually no death, no pain, no diseases, immortality? It seems like a dream. But the dark side of things eventually shows itself. As a character in the story described, when life is pleasant all the time there is no true joy that you experience, because there is no pain. On a small scale in the real world, this could be like summer break. After a while free, empty days are the norm, and they sort of lose much of their appeal, while in school, a day off meant so much more. Though I didn't know it yet, when Faraday took Rowan and Citra to the museum, it had a lot of meaning. The art from the "mortal" ages, I think they were called, had so much more passion and feeling. So to make life more worth living and more passionate, you need to struggle. Makes sense.
There's also the Thunderhead. The giant AI that stores every single bit of human knowledge. The gentle, impartial parent and judge, creating order in this world. Shusterman took the opposite direction that most sci-fi authors would probably take and made the Thunderhead a very good figure, who helped make sure no human was living in poverty, that everyone was taken care of, and everything was nice and sweet. The Thunderhead had such little role to play in the book! Also another thing was that now that people had every bit of knowledge in the world, no one used it, except for barely any scholars. This reminds me of when in a video game, you're finished with it, and it's kind of boring, because you simply have it all. So you reset. Something like that would be a very stupid idea for humanity in Scythe, but could be interesting. Instead, humans could redirect their efforts to colonizing planets. Then all the scythe business wouldn't have existed because people would go to other planets. It was surprising that there were disaster, showing that humans did indeed still have things to learn about the world. I guess the idea of a little danger and risks for the colonists was too much, because they were used to comfortable safety. Although people could have been unhappy with the boredom, they stuck with it because it was familiar and safe. This is one of the ways that the people in Scythe are related closely to the ones in The Every by Dave Eggers. They may be a bit unhappy, but safety and comfort won over.
Unfortunately, I am out of time for the day, and will discuss things like the characters and my feedback for the book, and the rating tomorrow.
There's also the Thunderhead. The giant AI that stores every single bit of human knowledge. The gentle, impartial parent and judge, creating order in this world. Shusterman took the opposite direction that most sci-fi authors would probably take and made the Thunderhead a very good figure, who helped make sure no human was living in poverty, that everyone was taken care of, and everything was nice and sweet. The Thunderhead had such little role to play in the book! Also another thing was that now that people had every bit of knowledge in the world, no one used it, except for barely any scholars. This reminds me of when in a video game, you're finished with it, and it's kind of boring, because you simply have it all. So you reset. Something like that would be a very stupid idea for humanity in Scythe, but could be interesting. Instead, humans could redirect their efforts to colonizing planets. Then all the scythe business wouldn't have existed because people would go to other planets. It was surprising that there were disaster, showing that humans did indeed still have things to learn about the world. I guess the idea of a little danger and risks for the colonists was too much, because they were used to comfortable safety. Although people could have been unhappy with the boredom, they stuck with it because it was familiar and safe. This is one of the ways that the people in Scythe are related closely to the ones in The Every by Dave Eggers. They may be a bit unhappy, but safety and comfort won over.
Unfortunately, I am out of time for the day, and will discuss things like the characters and my feedback for the book, and the rating tomorrow.
Good morning/afternoon/evening/night/3:00 AM,
Uncle Wally
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