Calling dystopian fiction fans of all ages! We are delighted to welcome Neal Shusterman back to Kepler’s to celebrate Rising Thunder, the long-awaited prequel to the New York Times bestselling Arc of a Scythe series.
About the Book
And of course, as every schoolchild knows, December 2042 marks the end of the Age of Mortality.
What no one has ever fully understood is how the world reached that moment.
As death begins to seem optional, humanity looks for ways to bend the rules of existence. Twi-life centers begin storing the nearly-deceased, while eco-nihilists destroy civilization’s icons and threaten to end the human race entirely. Public opinion fractures. Systems strain. The world feels…unstable.
Behind the scenes, two powerful and diametrically opposed artificial intelligences set out to optimize, stabilize, and protect—each with its own idea of what that means. But in a world already tipping toward transformation, the consequences could be catastrophic.
Meanwhile, in an obscure online chatroom, a small group of teenagers from around the globe debate both the glorious and the terrifying prospects of the future, never realizing that they stand on a very literal cutting edge—and that their conversations, their choices, their very existence matter far more than they realize.
Because when humanity stands on the brink of immortality, someone must decide what survives…and what must be cut away.
Neal Shusterman is the New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty award-winning books for children, teens, and adults, including the Unwind dystology, the Skinjacker trilogy, Downsiders, All Better Now, and Challenger Deep, which won the National Book Award. Scythe, the first book in his Arc of a Scythe series, is a Michael L. Printz Honor Book. He also writes screenplays for motion pictures and television shows. Neal is the father of four, all of whom are talented writers and artists themselves.
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