Summary
Endura has fallen. The ultimate scythe leadership has perished, leaving a vacuum for someone to step into. The voices of reason, the challenges to a growing evil, have been silenced. Blame has been placed. And if the lies fit what people want to believe – and if there’s no one alive to refute them – fiction becomes fact.
The Thunderhead has gone silent. The world is cut off from the AI that kept humanity in some sense of order. One man alone still speaks with the Thunderhead. The Tonists revere him as a holy man.
A dead man and a librarian follow clues to a fictional land that could save the world. But is anyone ready for the truths they could uncover there?
Review
This is the third and final book in the Arc of a Scythe series after Scythe and Thunderhead (♥♥♥♥½).
There is a TON of stuff going on in this book, which is why it clocks in at 625 pages, not counting the 30+pages of author notes in my Barnes and Noble special edition. All of it is fascinating. And I was completely satisfied with all the ways things wrapped up. But this was a BEAST of a book to finish. It felt long, and it was too easy to walk away from it for days.
There are multiple timelines at work here as all of the threads weave together. There are easily 10 “main” characters whose goals and actions and choices are driving the bulk of the story, and another 15 or so who also play a role. I might not have remembered all of the intricacies of the previous two books, but I was able to follow along without too much trouble.
Some interesting features appear in this book. Some of the history of this world is divulged. And the world is set to a version of “right” in the end. I enjoyed the author’s notes in my edition which shared stores of character development (like the gender fluid character, Jeri, who was fascinating) and decisions made early on in the writing for how things would wrap up.
This story line is now complete. There are avenues for possible off-shoots the author could explore, but they aren’t essential in my opinion. I don’t have any unanswered questions. But if the author writes more from this world, I will happily read it.
I’ve seen other readers post on social media that they are struggling to push through this large, long novel. My advice is to press on. I found the journey totally worthwhile. (Some language, violence, LGBTQ+)