SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2) by Neal Shusterman

SF/F Review: Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman (Arc of a Scythe #2) https://t.co/LjtoM936hS Short Review: 8 out of 10 (1/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) February 23, 2018

Short Review (cont): The Sequel to Scythe continues the tale of a world where humanity has conquered death & left killing to ordained "Scythes," w/a greater focus on the world-governing AI, the Thunderhead. A great expansion of this world, albeit w/a heavy cliffhanger ending 2/3

— garik16 (@garik16) February 23, 2018

  Thunderhead is the sequel to Neal Shusterman's "Scythe," and seemingly the middle book in a trilogy (the author has not confirmed the series' length).  For those who missed my review of Scythe (which I reviewed earlier this month), I enjoyed the characters and the plot, but felt a little annoyed that the sequel hooks at the end of the book were more interesting than the plot of Scythe itself.  So naturally I was really interested Thunderhead, which picks up from where Scythe left off and grabs those sequel hooks.

    For those who missed "Scythe," this story takes place in a distant future where humankind has obtained the ability to essentially conquer any death - whether by aging or unnatural causes - that doesn't cause the destruction of the body - and it falls to people appointed as "Scythes" to cull the population and keep some semblance of mortality intact.  In theory you could start this series with this book, but I wouldn't recommend it - the book relies a lot on the worldbuilding set up by Scythe and, most importantly, on the character development of our two main protagonists.  That said, the book does take the setup of Scythe and really run with it impressively, until it kind of frustratingly ends with a major cliffhanger ending.

  Still despite the annoying cliffhanger (and it's a doozy), Thunderhead does not disappoint in how it takes advantage of the setup and is a worthy successor to Scythe.

More after the jump - spoilers for Scythe are inevitable, sorry.


-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------
After the events of "Scythe," both Citra - now officially Scythe Anastasia - and Rowan (unofficially known as Scythe Lucifer) have gone their separate ways, with both attempting to take actions for the benefit of the Scythedom.  Citra has started to glean by giving her victims a choice of the method of their execution and giving them a month to say their farewells, all the while working with her mentor Scythe Curie.  Rowan meanwhile has stated to kill and incinerate Scythes he deems as corrupt, while on the run from the agents of the Scythedom.  Still, the New Order of Scythes - the ones who seem to believe Scythes should be privileged - remain growing in numbers and influence and the officially dead Scythe Faraday searches through historical records for the lost contingency plan made by the very first Head Scythe in case the Scythedom would turn wrong.

But in the meantime, the Thunderhead - the AI Cloud that governs the entire world except for the Scythedom - is observing the events and does not like what it sees, even when someone makes an attempt on Citra's life - and a conspiracy emerges with its own deigns on the future actions of the Scythedom.  But the Thunderhead is programmed specifically to maintain the "separation of Scythe and State" and cannot directly interfere....but what it can do is indirectly give hints as to its desires to individuals favorably disposed to it.  One of those is Greyson Tolliver, a boy raised by the Thunderhead who takes the hints of the AI to intervene, at seemingly great cost to himself.  But can Greyson really take action to help prevent the foreseen crisis?

And while it may not intervene directly, what will an outraged AI in the Thunderhead do to the rest of humanity?
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Thunderhead is mostly what a great sequel should do - it expands the world greatly, adds a major protagonist or two, but doesn't abandon the previous ones we've come to be interested in, and builds upon the questions that readers probably had at the end of the last book.  Citra and Rowan remain probably the most important characters, but new major protagonist Greyson Tolliver shows a different side of the world and is well built up.  And of course Citra and Rowan remain excellent characters, both of whom feel a need to try to improve the world and the Scythedom, but try to accomplish this through very different methods, shaped by their different experiences. 

And then there's the Thunderhead, which is a really fascinating character in of itself.  Whereas the first book had an excerpt from the diary of various Scythes in the story to start each chapter, this book features instead a short diatribe from the Thunderhead about the state of the world and about the events that are occurring in the plot, making the body-less AI feel like a real full character.  And it's a really interesting character  An AI that seems to think that it itself is perfect, although it has limitations that it has reasoned out as being for the greater good, but who seems almost to be trying to convince itself of its perfection and reason as the story goes on.  It's a very interesting take on an AI character, particularly one that is near-omnipotent.

The plot goes some fascinating places too.  The book is helped by a lesser focus on the major antagonists as individual people (one of Scythe's issues was an antagonist who was basically comically evil) and more as products of the environment, as well by focusing more on what people who aren't Scythes would do in such a dystopia/utopia.  The book is well paced, leading up to a finale that promises a massive change in the status quo.

That's really the only major negative with this book by the way - the cliffhanger ending.  One of the three major plots in this book basically doesn't get a resolution in any way at all (and maybe another can be said to be the same) with its impact being left for the third book in the series.  Thankfully that plotline is clearly the least important of the three, so the impact isn't as bad as it seems.  Still, while the major plotline does get some resolution (though again it also ends on a major cliffhanger), this very much has an extreme middle book in trilogy ending, where you will not be satisfied stopping with this book.

Again, I have no problems with cliffhangers as long as I can feel that the ending is satisfying, and for one of the three major plots, it definitely is.  But the others aren't which hurts this book overall.  That said, I really look forward to Book 3, whether it is or isn't the conclusion to the story.