Thunderhead

Thunderhead is a 2018 young adult novel by the American writer Neal Shusterman, published by Walker Books. It is the second book of the Arc of a Scythe series and follows Scythe.

The series is set in a world after the end of death from natural causes, where an artificial intelligence called the Thunderhead administers everything from food supply to the weather and human population is kept stable by a body of people called scythes, who are authorised to kill. Citra, now working as Scythe Anastasia, has chosen to give the people she gleans time to put their affairs in order before she acts, which puts her at odds with other scythes who treat the work as spectacle and patronage. Rowan, who trained beside her, has gone off the grid and is using the name Scythe Lucifer to kill scythes he believes are corrupt, and his actions are becoming a story the whole continent knows.

Because the Thunderhead is forbidden to interfere in the scythedom, the novel's two main characters are left to work against a failing institution inside a system that is otherwise working exactly as designed.