Neal Shusterman’s 2016 YA science fiction novel Scythe tells the story of two teenagers in the dystopian future who live in a world where death has been defeated. Weighty existential and philosophical questions abound in this first entry of the Arc of the Scythe Series, which has been highly praised for its insight and readability. The second book, Thunderhead, was released in 2018, and 2019’s The Toll completed the trilogy. This first installment explores themes of The Value of Mortality, The Necessity of Sacrifice, The Value of Compassion, and Human Fallibility and Weakness.

Content Warning: Both the novel and this guide contain references to suicide, abuse, and violent death.

Plot Summary

In the year 2042, the world’s artificial intelligences become sentient and form an omniscient network known as the Thunderhead. Because the Thunderhead has access to all that can be known, it quickly learns how to keep humans alive forever. The Thunderhead is put in charge of the government and rules benevolently and objectively. However, the problem of overpopulation and finite resources persists, so population growth is maintained by a group of people known as scythes. Scythes are required to “glean”—i.e., kill—a certain quota of people to balance the ratio of space and resources to people.

Early in the novel, teenagers Citra Terranova and Rowan Damisch are chosen as apprentice scythes to a man known as Scythe Faraday. They leave their families to live with Faraday in a modest home while he trains them in the duties of the scythe. After one year of training, he will choose one of them for the job while the other returns to normal life. Citra and Rowan begin a strict regimen of training in weapons, poisons, martial arts, history, and chemistry, and one of them always accompanies Faraday on his “gleanings.”

At one of three yearly scythe meetings called a conclave, other scythes raise objections over Faraday having chosen two apprentices, which has never been done. One of his enemies—a cruel man named Scythe Goddard who enjoys killing and views scythes as superior to other humans—proposes that the two apprentices compete throughout the year of their training. The one who is ordained will be required to glean the other as their first official act as a scythe. The motion passes, enraging Faraday and frightening Citra and Rowan.

Shortly after, guards visit Faraday’s home and tell Citra and Rowan that Faraday has died by suicide, which is called “self-gleaning.” Citra is sent to apprentice under Scythe Curie, a famous woman who gleaned the president and his cabinet shortly after the creation of the Thunderhead. Rowan is sent to apprentice under Scythe Goddard, who quickly begins turning him into an efficient killer. Curie is interested in Citra’s education. Goddard is interested only in seeing if he can twist the empathetic Rowan into a man who enjoys killing as much as he does.

Citra is eventually framed by enemies of Faraday and blamed for his death. With Curie’s help, she must go into hiding. She finds Faraday, still alive, and learns that Curie is the only other person who knows that he faked his self-gleaning. She briefly resumes her time as his apprentice before being cleared of wrongdoing and returning for the final conclave.

Meanwhile, Goddard forces Rowan to participate in increasingly elaborate mass gleanings, daring the Scythedom administrators or the Thunderhead to stop him. After gleaning everyone in a monastery, he orders Rowan to glean the final survivor. Instead, Rowan kills Goddard and his two junior scythes and then lets the building burn to the ground.

At the final conclave, each candidate is forced to kill one of their family members. These relatives will be reanimated, but the candidates have to perform the gleaning to show that they are committed and can live with the sorrow of their office. Citra stabs her brother, and Rowan shoots his mother. Then Citra is awarded the Scythehood and is required to glean Rowan. Instead, she punches him in the face with her scythe ring. When his DNA comes into contact with it, he is granted one year of immunity from gleaning, which was Citra’s plan. He fights his way out of the building and escapes with Faraday in a waiting car. As the book ends, Citra hears rumors that there is a non-scythe vigilante out there, burning corrupted and evil scythes. She wonders if it is Rowan.