Tsundoku reviewed Scythe by Neal Shusterman
Really Good uh... Topia?
5 stars
Content warning CW: Lots of Death, suicide, mild fatphobia, and ableist implications
My understanding is that Neal Shusterman wanted to create a society in which something predicted to be awful (AIs gaining sentience) actually is good. So I'm pretty sure this is not a Dystopia, but I'm not sure I'd call it a Utopia either. If you are not familiar with the premise: the Cloud gains Sentience (now called "The Thunderhead") and rules the world. People are for the most part, immortal. You can age yourself back down to 21, and the Thunderhead can put you back together if you say, jump off a building for fun. People have healing nanomachines and such (they also regulate your brain if you're say, depressed). So at most you're "Dead-ish". Except for those "Gleaned" by a group called Scythes, who name themselves after esteemed figures (we're coming back to that) for population control. The premise is for the two protagonists, they meet a Scythe (Faraday) who gleans people they know, and how they respond interests Faraday in taking both of them as apprentices, (because he feels revulsion for gleaning is important) and if they fail out they can return to their normal lives. Except they can't because the scythe conclave has decided whoever wins will glean the other. Drama ensues! Basically this is a really interesting premise. Shusterman does not ignore things like mental health, (One of the protagonists, Rowan, is implied to have needed his nanomachines tweaked because he was depressed). To be clear, I do not have a problem with that! Having to answer what happened to depression is good! What I am troubled by is that The Thunderhead has "cured" deafness, and presumably erased Deaf culture. I am not deaf, but I am autistic, and I assume I don't exist in this world. I will say, yes, the person that named themselves after Ayn Rand was a shit-head. So good on Shusterman. I get the impression that if you continue the series (and I want to, I'm just busy right now) it gets more into the ethics of the Thunderhead and such. Oh yes the fatphobia. There are two fat characters, and while one points out to someone that one of the fat people clearly has this in their genes, I sort of felt like there was this undercurrent of fatness as immoral. Maybe I'm too sensitive. I dunno. To be clear, I recommend this, assuming you can deal with LOTS of death and suicide.
