Review of Arc of the Scythe book series (originally published in The Four Corners, October 2023)

This past year, AI (artificial intelligence) has been the major topic of conversation across school and university campuses, as well as in other workplace settings.  ChatGPT has made AI more visible in most people’s lives today.  However, Neal Shusterman incorporated AI as one of his main characters in his Arc of the Scythe book series, with the first instalment released in 2016. In fact, the second book of the trilogy, Thunderhead is narrated by the AI character, who governs much of humanity’s day-to-day life.  Unlike the YA science fiction tales of the early 2000s set in the future like The Hunger Games or  Divergent, or other well-known more adult examples of the genre with such as  Orwell’s 1984 or Atwood’s A Handmaiden’s Tale, this series constructs  improved through technology, advanced medicine, and benevolent utopian governance.  

Arc of the Scythe imagines a future where the default setting for people is not to die by accident, through disease or even from old age.  This feat is achieved by an extension of the central AI in the form of ‘nanites’ or micro-robots medically inserted into the blood of all people and animals in the ‘Age of the post-mortals’.  The nanites carry out different functions which control pain, and allow natural functions of the human body to head at an accelerated pace.  Theoretically nobody has to die, or pay the consequences for individual mistakes since the nanites can fix broken bones, damaged organs, and revive a person after they have jumped (or been pushed) off a building.  Nanites inoculate bodies from harmful viruses, bacteria or parasites. Nanites can even reset the body’s chronological age.  Several characters we meet in this series are nearly 200 years old, but appear to be in their 30s, 40s, or 50s, after choosing to undergo a process called ‘turning a corner.’

Obviously, this does cause a problem—overpopulation—which in this imagined post-mortal world is ‘solved’ in the form of the Scythe, an elite, venerable organisation, whose members literally have the power of death and life.  Since the AI has been programmed to uphold the tenet that permanent death is the domain of humankind, it cedes this responsibility to the Scythe to chose who should be ‘gleaned’.  Paradoxically, the Scythe can also grant immunity from any gleaning for one year, which they often do as a comfort to relatives of an individual they have selected to glean. In theory, the Scythe not only chose who should die, they have an obligation to make all their selections in an ‘unbiased manner’ while fulfil a required yearly-kill-quota, set at regular Scythe conclaves (meetings) through the year.   In this post-mortal age, the AI can speak directly to any person via their nanites, and many people regularly have daily conversations with the AI.  However, because the AI cannot interfere with Scythe business, the AI goes silent in the presence of a Scythe—perhaps foreshadowing a gleaning is about to take place to the truly observant.      

There are four books that make up the Arc of the Scythe series: Scythe, Thunderhead, The Toll, and Gleanings.  The first three titles loosely follow two characters, Rowan Damisch and Citra Terranova, who at the beginning of the series are teenagers that are apprenticed under Scythe Faraday, and are set to become part of the next generation of Scythe.  Through these two characters, readers are introduced, then situated into this futuristic world, which although it has seemingly solved the major problems in our own time, such as Climate Change, global war, economic inequality and disease and death, other problems have arisen in their place with an equally existential nature.  After hundreds of years, the Scythe are the only humans with any power that matters, and as immortals they have become like mercurial ancient gods. Like these epic narratives, battles between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ play out incorporating sophisticated technology, as AI has become a key player working behind-the-scenes to shape human events.  

The fourth volume, Gleanings is a series of short stories which expand on the lives of and histories of characters introduced in the trilogy, and serve to further expand on Neal Shusterman’s fictional universe.  Released in 2022, it was written in collaboration with fellow writers: David Yoon, Jarrod Shusterman, Sofía Lapuente, Michael H. Payne, Michelle Knowlden, and Joelle Shusterman. Gleanings is as engaging as all of the books in the series, and while it can be read as a stand-alone work, it is more appreciated if it is read with the others.  All of these books are engaging, thought-provoking and thrilling to read.   
This is the draft version of what was published in my newsletter The Four Corners

20 Children's books with Strong Female Characters

A couple of years ago I got these two books for my daughter:

We really enjoyed them.  What is interesting is that they do not have main characters that are always succeeding, but trying very hard and putting a good effort into doing what interests them.  Anyway, I came across this website article which recommends other others that we will definitely give a try (already have Matilda, Pipi Longstockings, and Anne of Green Gables) if we haven't gotten them already. https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/1336-20-children-s-books-with-strong-female-characters?ref=book-show

When You Reach Me

This Christmas holiday is pretty quiet.  I remember last year I was busily trying to finish up the corrections for my PhD thesis because I was about to start teaching in Los Angeles during UCLA's Winter Quarter.  Actually the last couple of Christmas holidays have been pretty busy, but this year I managed to have time to read three Newberry award books.  One of them is When You Reach Me.  I found it very engrossing and finished it in one afternoon.

I really like the structure of the book.  There are three themes going on in this mystery sci-fi: one is time travel, one is friendship, and one is related the TV gameshow $20,000 Pyramid. The chapter titles are related to the way clues in the game show are given to its contestants.

The story is also a homage to A Wrinkle in Time, another favorite book of mine.  Miranda, the main character, is constantly rereading A Wrinkle in Time, and several characters she interacts with start discussing the physics of time travel with her because she is always carrying it around.  However, she does not travel anywhere herself.  She stays in New York during the school year 1978-1979.

The characters are all well-developed, and there is a lot of humour when they interact.  One passage explains that when Miranda feels scared about walking around in New York City and is scarred of a stranger, she copes by turning to the person she feels anxious about and asking "Do you have the time?"  Miranda reasons that the strategy shows: I know you are there, but I've chosen to acknowledge you as a potential friend. Also, I have no watch or anything expensive and I am not worth mugging.

In another scene, Miranda is explaining to Belle, a friendly green grocer at a local shop that she spends time in, about the plot of A Wrinkle in Time. 
"Does this Meg character have a boyfriend in the book?" Belle asks.
"Um... sort of." Miranda says.  "But that's not the point."
Louisa May Alcott would be pleased to know that stories with girls have a weighty plot, not driven by romantic interested alone, and much more to to say about the world around them.

I think the book is brilliant, and I can see why it not only won the Newberry Award in 2010, but also 8 other awards including Publishers Weekly, the School Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews' best (children's) book of the year, and listed as a notable book on The New York Times list for 2009.

A highlight from visiting the Harry Potter Studio in Leavesden, London

For my son's 11th birthday, last year, he got to ride a broom.  It was great fun.

More books to add to my reading list

Reddit, Quora, and online forums

Sometimes, I think I may have limited myself with this blog dedicated to Books, Film and TV.  On something completely non-topical and different as a genre, I came across a series of online "advice columns" where people post questions and the Internet, in the form of crowd sourcing, answers these people's questions, for example, questions are discussed in places like Reddit or Quora sites. I also recently heard a podcast talking about the "Ask a grown man", program, where where confused (usually girls) can ask a grown man a question or series of questions through letters, and whoever volunteers to answer these questions gives them an honest sincere answer (while making their identity anonymous). I thought that sounded cool, found an example of it with one of my favorite gurus, Stephen Colbert https://vimeo.com/102088000

On a different forum, I did find something amusing in response to the question "Can a guy hate you because he's in love with you?"  While many people commented that this sounded like the behaviour of a very young man (it was confirmed), there seem to be a surge in insightful and witty people out in the Internet ether. 

A response from handle name "imago": 
"Honey, we are men! We are complex beings capable of all manner of juxtapositions! We can bend the laws of physics. Just this morning, I ordered an extra large Pepsi in an extra small cup. 

I can hate you while loving you.

I have also been known to pay unfaltering attention to you while intensely ignoring you.

So the short answer is, yes."

It's interesting how advice columns have shifted from being broadcast through newspapers to radio, to online media.   Mode of communication has changed, but format had just adapted to new technology. Indeed-- what interesting times we live in!

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, refugees, and lessons for Western Governments today

Most of the time when WWII atrocities are brought up (usually by American politicians) it’s to talk about the terrible acts the Nazi committed against the Jews and how we must position ourselves to fight the next Hitler.  But more needs to be discussed about how Western governments failed to help ordinary people they were meant to protect, especially refugees. One of my favorite children’s author/illustrors is Judith Kerr, best known for When the Tiger Came to Tea and series of picture books on Mog the Cat. She also wrote a trilogy (based on the style of Wilder’s Little House series) about her life growing up as a refugee fleeing Nazi Germany.  

In When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, she talks about first fleeing to Switzerland, then to France and finally to England because her father, a secular Jew and famous writer had written against the Nazi party, prior to their coming to power.  In the second book of the series Bombs on Aunt Dainty, she talks about living in England and how because of their German nationality, her brother (along with thousands of others) was picked up and then interned on the Isle of Wight for serval months.  There were three classes that foreign nationals in any way related to Germany were categorized into: “Aliens”, “Enemy Aliens” and “Friendly Enemy Aliens.”  Most Friendly Enemy Aliens were German Jews.  

The thought that Jews would betray English or French to Hitler is ludicrous today (the French interned them as well and when the Nazis marched into Paris it made the job of rounding up Jews easier), but the “security of the general public” and that “Nazis can hide among the German Jews,” was what justified these actions.  

Any security program that tries to round up/black list people that is not based on actual evidence against individuals themselves, but based on a broad set of categories like “nationality” or “religion” or “race”, is stupid. It is also counter- productive.  Instead of actually looking for people who cause trouble, resources have to be wasted on people who are not a threat but just “look” like one.

Post script: After her brother was released from the internment camp, he went to fight the Nazis as an RAF (Royal Air Force) fighter pilot.