Gleanings

Arc of a Scythe

By: Neal Shusterman

Narrated by: Neal Shusterman, Megan Tusing, Greg Tremblay, Nicky Endres, Jarrod Shusterman, Fiona Hardingham, Rachel Nalebuff

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.

©2022 Neal Shusterman (P)2022 Simon & Schuster Audio

Critic reviews

"Author and narrator Neal Shusterman invites listeners back to the thrilling Arc of the Scythe series with this short story collection featuring multiple narrators. His warm, companionable delivery reveals secrets and origin stories of existing and new characters. Narrator Greg Tremblay’s familiar vocal versatility and Fiona Hardingham’s English accent and humorous tone make the two stand out in this collection. The final story features Tremblay, Megan Tusing, and Nicky Endres together in a fascinating mental conversation between Cirrus, the AI offspring of the Thunderhead, and one of the many survivors from Earth. This audiobook collection spans the entire timeline of the creation and downfall of the Scythes and is essential for fans of the original series."—AudioFile Magazine

Sharpens The Blades

The strongest part of this collection is how well it expands the world, and in some cases, our understanding of events that were referenced in the Arc trilogy.

There are different kinds of stories here, different genres, that all benefit your total understanding of the world.

I would love to hear more stories here if they continued to flesh out the total history we are vaguely aware of.

Neal is a fantastic writer, and I really value his perspective, and overall messaging. There’s beauty in all of these stories.


Only thing worth noting is that, in comparison to Greg Tremblay, he and his son Jarrod are not the best readers. I found it difficult to stay in tune with the story Jarrod reads in particular due to Scythe’s having similar names and Jarrod’s lack of clarity as a narrator.

Greg and company do a GREAT job and as you get to the end of the collection they incorporate the voices of others throughout the collection into one single story. It’s awesome design, and it was very satisfying.

All Scythe fans should read this.
I’m looking forward to incorporating it in my next re-read of the trilogy.

best sci-fi

The stories in this were absolutely awesome and do what the best sci-fi does: asks the question what does it mean to be human and what does it mean to live? The stories in this book will stay with me long after and I highly recommend it.

Good but....

It was interesting to hear the origin stories for some of the characters. The originals are my favorites. such a great story.

shusterman is a genius

I want more thunderhead content!! I refuse to accept that this series is over. maybe the scythdom is but I will consume any and all thunderhead content! well done Neal!

Excellent!

I was so excited to see this book released. Reading the reviews, I thought it might not be as good as the original three in the series. I don’t know why people were complaining about it, I thought it was fantastic. The reading was great, the storylines were great, I appreciated the whole thing.

Tied up ends

Great stories. I loved the background and history from the trilogy. One narrator was really bad and made it hard to listen.

Opens the imagination!

Loved the whole series. This collection of stories fills in some blanks and continues some familiar story lines as well as introducing new ones. Thought provoking ideas. Very well read.

Fantastic worldbuilding

I adored the depth these stories all added to the Scythe universe. Every single one was unique and interesting.

Great story, really explains more in depth

I loved this book. A lot of short stories that explained more in depth what was going on.

Loved that we got more

I totally loved that we got these short stories of Goddard and Currie plus a bunch of people we had heard about in the main books. I do wish it would’ve kept the same narrator for each story. It threw me off a bit when the thunder head had different voices. I 100% recommend this book after the trilogy.