Scythe (Arc of a Scythe, #1)

by Neal Shusterman

The ending of human life used to be in the hands of nature. But we stole it. Now we have a monopoly on death. We are its sole distributor.

In building the world for SCYTHE, I came to realize that the human race was not so much playing god, as negating nature. Nature is what happens when there’s no intervention. And the reality of nature is incredibly cruel. Survival of the fittest, evolutionary success to the most ruthless. When it comes to the end of life, nature is all about pain and suffering. We have always intervened to ease pain, and make life—and death—easier. Death WILL eventually be defeated. There will come a time when, we deny nature its due. So what happens when we break the cycle of life? Will we find the wisdom to handle the responsibility? When we become “the sole distributor” of death, how will we manage it? Will we destroy the world through overpopulation, creating even more misery? Or will we find a humane way to keep the population in check? The scythedom was supposed to be the humane solution—and for honorable scythes, it is. Unfortunately not all scythes are honorable…