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Trivia, title by title: 14 in total. Tap a cover to open it. Titles you haven't marked as read stay locked so nothing gets spoiled.
- Referencenod to comics or other movies
- Cameoa familiar face shows up
- Setupplanted now, pays off later
- Behind the scenesproduction trivia
- Behind the scenesThe opposite of a dystopia
Shusterman wanted to write the opposite of a dystopia: a world where things went right. The question was the cost of getting what we want. To control the population without natural death, he pictured something like the Jedi, but of death.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesRights sold before release
Universal bought the film rights in May 2016, months before the book came out that November. The script went through several writers, and in 2022 Steven Spielberg joined the project. In 2025, Shusterman said the adaptation had become a TV series project.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesAn award and a Time list
The book earned a Printz Honor in 2017, one of the top awards in American YA. In 2021 it made Time's list of the 100 best YA books of all time.
source ↗ - SetupThe Thunderhead can't touch the scythes
Note the rule: the AI that runs everything can't interfere with the scythes. Shusterman said the danger in the series isn't the machine, it's the people who can be corrupted.
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- Behind the scenesAn AI that isn't the villain
Shusterman deliberately avoided the evil-AI cliché. The Thunderhead is benevolent and never makes mistakes, so it has no regrets. But it feels: it loves humanity, grieves loss and gets frustrated by what it can't control.
source ↗ - ReferenceA god in training
The author compares the Thunderhead to a deity: a god in training that has to let humanity fail so it can grow. In this book, it narrates passages between chapters.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesA third lead
Greyson Tolliver joins the story as someone who admires the Thunderhead and ends up marked unsavory. Shusterman explained that the Thunderhead won't speak to anyone with that label.
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- Behind the scenesThe doorstopper
The first US edition runs 625 pages, almost 200 more than Scythe. It's the longest book in the series.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesA working title
While writing it, Shusterman said the book was titled The Toll for now. The name stuck. He revealed the story picks up a few years after Thunderhead ends, with the world already changed.
source ↗ - SetupWhat he promised to reveal
Before release, the author said the book would deal with a failsafe left by the founding scythes and a cover-up of the tragedies in space. Pay attention to the scythes' rings.
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- Behind the scenesMany hands
Shusterman wrote the collection with six collaborators: David Yoon, Jarrod Shusterman, Sofía Lapuente, Michael H. Payne, Michelle Knowlden and Joelle Shusterman. Joelle wrote the poem that opens the book.
source ↗ - ReferenceHow Susan became Curie
The story Formidable shows young Susan becoming Scythe Marie Curie, guided by Faraday. It's the origin of one of the trilogy's central characters.
source ↗ - ReferenceGoddard's origin
A Martian Minute takes place away from Earth and tells where Scythe Robert Goddard came from. Another story, A Death of Many Colors, is narrated by the Thunderhead itself.
source ↗ - Behind the scenesThere's more coming
The next book in this world is Rising Thunder, a prequel about the first scythes and the rise of the Thunderhead. Simon & Schuster set it to go on sale December 1, 2026.
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