Gleanings
Stories from the Arc of a Scythe
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4.3 • 72 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
The New York Times bestselling Arc of the Scythe series continues with “captivating…thrilling” (School Library Journal) stories that span the timeline. Storylines continue. Origin stories are revealed. And new Scythes emerge!
There are still countless tales of the Scythedom to tell. Centuries passed between the Thunderhead cradling humanity and Scythe Goddard trying to turn it upside down. For years, humans lived in a world without hunger, disease, or death with Scythes as the living instruments of population control.
Neal Shusterman—along with collaborators David Yoon, Jarrod Shusterman, Sofía Lapuente, Michael H. Payne, Michelle Knowlden, and Joelle Shusterman—returns to the world throughout the timeline of the Arc of a Scythe series. Discover secrets and histories of characters you’ve followed for three volumes and meet new heroes, new foes, and some figures in between.
Gleanings shows just how expansive, terrifying, and thrilling the world that began with the Printz Honor–winning Scythe truly is.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Spanning from the end of the mortal era alluded to in Scythe to the period following The Toll, Shusterman's amalgam of in-world extrapolations—many written in collaboration with creators including Joelle Shusterman and David Yoon—explore previously under-illuminated corners of the Arc of a Scythe universe. While a handful of excellent stories add notable depth to two of the trilogy's most pivotal characters, and others flesh out personages mentioned only in passing, the best engage playfully with the established works' rules and tone. These include a paranoid-feeling thriller ("Never Work with Animals," coauthored with Michael H. Payne), a deadly game of cat and mouse occurring in a literal dreamscape ("Perchance to Glean," coauthored with Michelle Knowlden), a romantic comedy starring an accident-prone pair ("Meet Cute and Die"), and a surreal feud that turns Barcelona into a murderous Rube Goldberg machine ("The Persistence of Memory," coauthored with Jarrod Shusterman and Sofía Lapuente). Though the volume's not a starting place for series newcomers, existing fans will relish the varied tales, which handle themes of art, meaning, and morality in a post-death world with an efficacious mixture of humor, violence, and gentle absurdity. Ages 12–up.
Customer Reviews
Surprisingly Good
This is a book of stories related to the world created for the Scythes. Normally, I have great difficulty getting through story collections. That wasn’t the case here, as each story was intertwining and thought-provoking.