Thunderhead (#2 of Arc of a Scythe)
Neal Shusterman, 6/10
‘It is not for us to judge the darkness, but rather to carry the light into it.’
‘I make no mistakes’ – After humanity’s conquest over death, the threat of overpopulation led to the development of the Scythedom – an organization of killers approved and sanctioned by the leading governor of this world, the Thunderhead. The ten commandments of the Scythedom lead and dictate how a Scythe must live, and thus were intended to prevent bias and corruption from growing within. However, the commandments are painfully vague, leading to a growing group of corrupt scythes, the self-acclaimed ‘New Order’, who glean without second thought and derive pleasure from the taking of life.
Following the winter conclave in which Citra Terranova was ordained as ‘Scythe Anastasia’, Rowan Damisch has become the infamous ‘Scythe Lucifer’, acting as a vigilante within the Scythedom, gleaning scythes who he deems are corrupt and biased. Citra, now an official Scythe, gleans with compassion and sympathy, heavily opposing the ‘New Order’, yet simultaneously being the face of the newly ordained Scythes. Using their heavy influence over the scythedom, Citra and Scythe Curie work hard to diminish the sway of the New Order. With a growing division and unrest within the scythedom, the ostensibly all-powerful, supposedly flawless Thunderhead must find a way to preserve the tranquility of its world without directly interfering with Scythe activity.
In ‘Thunderhead’, Neal Shusterman experiments with excerpts from the Thunderhead’s consciousness in a style similar to the journal entries from ‘Scythe’ (#1 of Arc of a Scythe), to give us insight into the Thunderhead’s perspective of humanity, while also questioning and examining existential and moral themes in a broader sense, with relation to our modern world. This style of writing, while effective in illustrating the Thunderhead’s personal ‘thoughts’, conveys a more mundane image of the Thunderhead, which contradicts the ‘heavenly’ and ‘all-powerful’ descriptions that are attributed to it. Additionally, the narrative lacks originality in certain aspects, and by bringing back the main antagonist of the first book, Shusterman loses credibility and causes us to question the validity of every death, kill or major event. Also, by bringing back Scythe Goddard, Shusterman eliminates opportunities for new conflicts and possible character development, instead opting to redo the original conflict when the conclusion at the end of ‘Scythe’ was more than satisfactory. Overall, I feel that while ‘Thunderhead’ offers a new perspective of the ‘Scythe’ world, and delves deeply into philosophical and moral ideas, the decision to resurrect the original antagonist undermines the finality of the conclusion of ‘Scythe’, and stalls potential character growth and new conflicts or relationships. Thus I give ‘Thunderhead’ by Neal Shusterman a 3/5.
