Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The sins of the founding scythes now reap terrible rewards in this trilogy conclusion.The Thunderheada benevolent, nigh-omniscient, nanite-controlling artificial intelligencestill runs the world but speaks only to Greyson Tolliver. Now deified as the Toll, prophet of the Tonists, Greyson attempts to advise a populace abruptly cut off from the Thunderhead's gentle guidance. For the scythesallegedly compassionate and objective executioners whose irreversible gleanings control the post-mortal populationthe Thunderhead's been silent for centuries, but recent scythedom unrest now tests the Thunderhead's noninterference. Untouchable and unhinged, Scythe Goddard, self-appointed Overblade, encourages unrestricted and prejudiced gleanings. Formerly formidable opponents Scythe Anastasia (Citra Terranova) and scythe-killer Scythe Lucifer (Rowan Damisch) are now fugitives, saved from the sea but pursued by Goddard's allies. Even in a post-national, post-racial world, Capt. Jerico's meteorologically influenced gender fluidity surprises some, but as Goddard's bigotry indicates, discrimination plagues even the post-mortals. Shusterman (Dry, 2018, etc.) wryly unravels organized religion and delivers a scathing takedown of political demagogues. Yet the whirlwind of narrators, sly humor, and action scenes never obscures the series' central question: If most death is impermanent, and age can be reset, what's the meaning of life?Long but strong, a furiously paced finale that reaches for the stars. (Science fiction. 14-adult) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

In this final volume in Shusterman's dystopian fantasy trilogy (Scythe, rev. 11/16; Thunderhead, rev. 3/18), Scythe Faraday is preparing to sail into the Thunderhead's blind spot to a small archipelago; now that the scythedom has run off the rails, he is looking for the fail-safe he believes the founding scythes have left behind. Greyson Tolliver, the only person not marked "unsavory" and therefore the only one who can communicate with the Thunderhead (the virtually omnipotent, artificially intelligent, cloud-based guardian of humankind), transforms himself into a mythical figure known as the Toll. Meanwhile, the Thunderhead manages to have Citra and Rowan retrieved from the depths of the Endura wreck and revived from their dead-ish state. They are quickly separated, becoming additional pieces that Shusterman moves around the chessboard as he works through the tangled machinations of the plot, shifting subtly from an emphasis on individual characters to a broader focus on humankind; ethics, politics, race, religion, gender, and sustainability are all contemporary issues woven into the story's fabric. The conclusion is surprising and bittersweet, but there is a note of optimism that lingers beyond the last page. (c) Copyright 2021. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.