Thursday, January 16, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Toll by Neal Shusterman




The Toll is the third and final book in Neal Shusterman's YA Trilogy, the "Arc of a Scythe", which began with 2017's "Scythe".  I really liked the setup in Scythe, although I complained back in my review (here) that the book's setup was more interesting than the events in the book.  The 2nd book, "Thunderhead" (Reviewed here) really made the most of that setup: a world which has conquered death, but in which population management is handled by a group of people known as Scythes, who can kill others permanently subject to certain rules...not that all of them are satisfied by those rules and limitations.  In addition, the world was governed by a powerful AI, whose only limitation appeared to be its programming preventing it from directly interfering with the Scythedom.  Thunderhead was maybe everything you could want from a 2nd book - it expanded the world in interesting ways, built upon the existing characters, and ended in a terrific cliffhanger, so I really was excited to finally finish the series with The Toll when I saw it was coming out.

Unfortunately, the Toll tries to do a bit too many things in too short a time (and it's a 640 page book, so it's not short) and it's a bit of a mess as a result, to my disappointment.  The book has trouble juggling all of the many characters - the old ones and a few new ones as well - resulting in some being lost for pages at a time, including our central protagonist duo, as Shusterman tries to wrap everything up in a single volume.  The plot wraps everything up nicely in the end, but it isn't as satisfying as it should be for some of our more essential characters, making me wish this book was split into two volumes to give space for everyone.


----------------------------------------------Plot Summary----------------------------------------------------------
Endura has fallen, and with it the global governing body of the Scythedom is gone.  Blaming the fall on the disappeared Scythe Lucifer, Scythe Goddard and his New Order Scythes has expanded his power and begun implementing policies that will allow him and his followers to glean (kill) those who oppose them, regardless of the prior rules on discrimination.  Meanwhile, the Thunderhead has deemed everyone unsavory, meaning that non-Scythes no longer have access to the near-omniscient AI that guided them throughout their lives, now that the immortal world has turned so unexpectedly deadly.

But Goddard's new world order will not go unchallenged.  Masquerading as a prophet to the tonist cult, Greyson Tolliver still has the ability to speak to the Thunderhead, and aims to do something with that ability to help save the world.  The presumed dead Scythe Faraday has found an island that seemingly contains the failsafe hidden by the first Scythes in case of disaster.  And the Thunderhead itself is trying to take actions to ensure a new future, even when those actions come into conflict with its own programming.

And under the sea lies a vault from Endura just waiting to be recovered.  And inside that vault, their bodies preserved for revival, are Citra and Rowan...........
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Scythe and Thunderhead painted a picture of a world in which humans had evolved past mortal death, and had developed both an AI to govern the immortal world so that everyone could maintain satisfactory lives and an order of people - the Scythes - who would have the ability to permanently kill others to maintain population control....as long as they followed certain rules preventing discriminatory killing.  Over the past few books, the story has taken this world apart, showing the dystopian aspects for what they were, as our hero protagonists - Citra and Rowan - tried to make their way within the Scythedom to root out corruption and to try and make it all work.

Citra and Rowan, however, are absent for much of this book, and aren't even present at all in the first act.  The additional main characters introduced in the last book - the AI Thunderhead and its young agent Greyson Tolliver (who becomes the eponymous "Toll" here) take a greater role on the stage, as the world tries to deal with the fallout from the last book and to reveal some of the mysteries that were brought up in prior books: What was the failsafe hidden by the Scythes?  Why did the off planet settlements fail?  Is this global system doomed to failure now that the Scythedom has fallen under corrupt leadership?  Well, that last one isn't really a background mystery, but it and the other two questions form much of the plot here, and the book alternates perspectives between various characters as it explores and answers these questions.

The result however, isn't quite as satisfying as one would hope, because in the process of trying to wrap up the plot and mysteries, The Toll doesn't really give us enough time with the characters who were the backbone of this series.  In particular, Citra and Rowan are blatantly shortchanged - with Rowan getting so little time and having an ENTIRE ARC happen completely OFF PAGE which winds up having no significance whatsoever as far as I can tell - and really, their relationship and their alternate viewpoints on how to deal with the problems were the best parts of this series previously, and it's a big shame to see it basically lost here.  Greyson's arc works solidly enough, but I just didn't care too much about Greyson as much as the other characters to truly love it as much, and the Thunderhead isn't really much different from the last book as a character, although the book does do some creative stuff with it.

But Greyson's arc is really the only one that the book spends substantial time with from beginning to end and gets decent development.  Scythe Faraday's arc is explored early then disappears for hundreds of pages (for the second straight book!), which also takes away one of our more interesting characters along with him.  New character Jeri, a genderfluid savager who finds themselves in several other major characters' orbits, is also pretty interesting, but while they get an actual decent amount of page time, the attention directed in so many different places prevents their arc from truly feeling like more than a skeleton.  All that's done in The Toll does result in the questions of the series being answered and the plot coming to an end, but the characters are not done justice in the meantime.  Perhaps if this book was split into two books, it'd be better, but as is, that's always a disappointment to see characters sacrificed for plot.

I'll miss this series honestly, and I'll miss Citra and Rowan and even some of the others.  I just wish this book had let me spend enough time with them to make it all worth it.
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