The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Gleanings: Stories from the Arc of a Scythe by Neal Shusterman

Episode Date: October 9, 2022

Gleanings: Stories from the Arc of a Scythe by Neal Shusterman The New York Times bestselling Arc of the Scythe series continues with thrilling stories that span the timeline. Storylines continue. Origin stories are revealed. And new Scythes emerge! There are still countless tales of the Scythedom to tell. Centuries passed between the Thunderhead cradling humanity and Scythe Goddard trying to turn it upside down. For years humans lived in a world without hunger, disease, or death with Scythes as the living instruments of population control. Neal Shusterman—along with collaborators David Yoon, Jarrod Shusterman, Sofía Lapuente, Michael H. Payne, Michelle Knowlden, and Joelle Shusterman—returns to the world throughout the timeline of the Arc of a Scythe series. Discover secrets and histories of characters you’ve followed for three volumes and meet new heroes, new foes, and some figures in between. Gleanings shows just how expansive, terrifying, and thrilling the world that began with the Printz Honor–winning Scythe truly is.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Hey, welcome to another podcast. We certainly appreciate you guys going by. Thanks for being here.

We have an amazing author on the show. He's written a whole bunch of books. We're going to have to ask him how many there are because he's written so many. I can't count that. I went to public school. There was that. Guys, you can hear him laughing in the back. We'll have him on the show here in a bit.

But in the meantime, as always, refer to the show to your family, friends, and relatives. If you haven't yet, make that commitment. Make a commitment to the family that loves you but doesn't judge you. The Chris Foss Show. Go to youtube.com, 4chesschrissfoss, hit the bell notification button, goodreads.com, 4chesschrissfoss. All of our groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, all those crazy places those kids are playing. Today, we have the amazing author on the show. Neil Shusterman is with us.

He's the author of the newest book that's coming out November 8th, 2022. My God, are we in November yet, Margaret? Hell, we are. So, well, we're technically in October right now, but it's coming. It's coming there. In fact, one of my friends recently said that the Christmas ornaments are out at one of the stores in their local stores. Christmas? It's not even October. Anyway, guys, the new book is called Gleaning Stories from the Arc of a Scythe. Neil Shusterman is on the show with us today. He's going to be talking about this amazing book, and he's written a whole series of books that are very popular, very exciting. New York Times bestselling author. He's going to be on the show talking with us about that. Neil is the author of many novels for young adults, including Unwind, which was an ALA best book for young adults,

and Quick Pick for reluctant young readers, ever lost and downsiders, which was nominated for 12 state reading awards. He also writes screenplays for motion pictures and television shows such as Animorphs and Goosebumps. The father of four children, Neil lives in Southern California. Welcome to the show, Neil. How are you? I am doing very well. Glad to be on the show. And we're honored to have you. Thank you very much for coming by and spending some time with us today. How many books have you written?

The expansive novels that you have on Amazon are epic. Gleanings is number 53. 53? Wow. that's just amazing so tell us what motivates you to write this latest book oh we should probably get your dot com if you have it or wherever you want people to find you on the interweb as well sure it's storyman.com or at neil schusterman on instagram at twitter and and just neil scherman at Facebook. There you go. So what motivated you to write this latest book? You know, the Ark of a Scythe series has been my most successful series, and I was not ready to leave that world.

I love the characters. Fans wanted more. They wanted, you know, backstories on character. They were always asking me questions that I couldn't answer in the series. And so this is an opportunity for me to explore different aspects of the world that I couldn't answer in the series. And so this is an opportunity for me to explore different aspects of the world that I didn't get to explore in the trilogy, and also to give fans some of the things that they've been asking for. There you go. So tell us about the book. And is this a book where people can jump in, in the middle of many of the novels that you

have about this world and and and get it or do they need to start another position if they're new well i mean if you're new you can get it i mean the the world is pretty straightforward it's a world where we get to where human beings get to live forever and the only way that you can die is to be chosen to die by a scythe who are kind of these these jedi of death who travel the world fitting out the population. And so sort of once you know that, then you know all you need to know to go into the stories. Of course, it's always better if you've read the trilogy

before reading these side stories, but it still stands on its own. You should buy them all and just catch up then, including this one. This is really interesting. So there's these people that go around. Can you hire them to take care of other people for you? Or do they kind of work on their own? Well, they work on their own and they make their own laws. They're above the law and they can do whatever they want with impunity.

Wow. So they're kind of like. For people who are not as honorable as they're supposed to be. Ah, so they kind of settle some scores or they're kind of the, what would you call them? Kind of the authority that maintains a balance of good and evil, maybe? Pretty much, yeah. Ah. They're supposed to be good, except some bad eggs get in there.

So you live forever in this world. Is it set in space, a different planet? Is it set in Vegas? Where is it established at? It's set in the not-too-distant future, a couple of hundred years from now. AI is now controlling the world, but a benevolent AI. It's sort of the idea was to do a story

that was the opposite of a dystopian story. Whereas dystopian stories are about what happens when the world goes wrong. The world of Scythe is what happens when we get everything that we want, when everything goes right, when we defeat all diseases. And then AI, rather than being a terrifying thing, actually is this benevolent thing that has helped us. But of course, in a world where we get everything we want, there are going to be consequences.

And we have to face the consequences of having everything that we want. And one of those is sort of having no more natural death. And so death has to be something that is doled out by the sites. I love this concept. And I love the way you put it, because most people write about the future in dystopian. And if you watch the news, it's not hard to connect those dots. those dots but so you know there's a what's that old adage be careful what you wish for you might get it and i imagine you you know you exploring that the books and

flushing that out flushing this that out would would give a lot of room for stuff you know i don't i mean living forever do you really want to live forever? I mean, that's a lot of X's that you kind of have stalking you on Facebook. Well, you know, the whole thing about living forever is that, you know, when you have endless amounts of time to do anything that you want, you kind of never do anything. And that's one of the, one of the consequences is that people have lost their passion for life because there is no longer an expiration date sounds like me at 40 let's see do people get older as they age or they do they get locked they do but they can reset their age back they call it turning the corner so at any point in time they can set their age back to any age that they want from 21 and up so people

you know getting to a certain age and then setting this clock back. Ah, do I get to keep all the smarts that I learned over 40, 50 years or whatever? In theory? Yes. You get to keep everything. Even if you get it,

even if you get into an accident and you, and you go deadish as they call it, you just get brought back. Ah, and all of your memories are retained by the thunderhead, which is the AI. And so you you you know you can't die by accident so people start doing dangerous things because they know that that

they'll just be brought back and it can't kill them i guess you would kind of get a little flippant with your life i mean you know skydiving without a parachute is you know call it splatting it's a thing in the world the world wow it's a thing i mean if you're gonna go out go out with a bang and then you're not really going out so you know you got that going on and so are they are this the scythe people are they kind of like the police department or are they kind of a moral code how does that go on it's more of a moral code. I mean, there's supposed to be these honorable, you know, the best of the best, you know, the Jedi of this world who do what they do, not because they want to end life, but because they know that it is this solemn task that they're performing for the human race. But, you know, when you have that much power, bound to be some characters that get in there who should not be doing it and they start to abuse this oh oh does they got the bad sky cops maybe they come into play so imagine

this leaves quite a lot of room for really great writing and reading and and exploring out these spaces and of course you know it's it's always that good and evil, that battle of good and evil, right? Yeah. And, you know, the world has grown so rich. You know, one of the fun things about world building is that your world starts to get out of control. It starts to, you know, become so real that there's things to explore that you never even thought about before. And so, you know, getting to play within this world has been a lot of fun. Yeah. thought about before and so you know getting to play within this world has been a lot of fun yeah so is the population getting kind of out of control because people are still having kids right people yeah forever yeah well you know the thunderhead keeps the world sustainable but lots to be a certain amount of people who die to keep that keep that happening which is why there

are sites tell us about some of the characters in the book that you flesh out. Well, you know, the main characters in the series are Citra and Rowan, two teenagers who are taken on as apprentices to be sites. And we sort of watch their growth through the three books. But in Gleanings, which is, you know, a collection of stories, I get to explore the backstories of some of our favorite sites. You know, there's Scythe Faraday, who's kind of like my Obi-Wan Kenobi. And there is Scythe Curie. And we get to see her as a teenager. You know, she's sort of this stately, venerable Scythe who's been around for a hundred years, but now we get to see her as a teenager.

And then there's Scythe Goddard, who is the bad guy? I mean, he is perhaps the nastiest villain I've ever written. And we get to see him when he was a creepy 16-year-old. You know, what was it that made him this bad guy? Ah, it sounds like my 16 years. I don't know. I read the book, but that's probably, you know, I was up to something in my 16 years or something. I think it was mostly chasing girls around town but i had my moments i suppose everyone does at that age of adolescence and stuff so how many how many books are there in the series itself you're written

do you say 53 books yeah on this series there's it's just the the trilogy three and then gleanings which is the sort of sorcery collection that wraps everything up. Yeah. So I haven't closed the idea of maybe doing another one or maybe doing a prequel. I have a lot of fans asking for a prequel. So, you know, there might be some day I might go back and do that. But I have, you know, new ideas and new worlds that I'm sort of working on right now. Hi, folks. Chris Voss here with a little station break.

Hope you're enjoying the show so far. We'll resume here in a little station break. Hope you're enjoying the show so far. We'll resume here in a second. I'd like to invite you to come to my coaching, speaking, and training courses website. You can also see our new podcast over there at chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com. Over there, you can find all the different stuff that we do for speaking engagements if you'd like to hire me, training courses that we offer offer and coaching for leadership, management, entrepreneur ism, uh, podcasting, corporate stuff, uh, with over 35 years of experience in business and running companies as CEO. Uh, I think I can offer a wonderful breadth of information and knowledge to you or anyone that you want to invite me to for your company.

Thanks for tuning in. We certainly appreciate you listening to the show and be sure to check out chrisfossleadershipinstitute.com. Now back to the show. There you go. I, and, or would there be more books in this,

which has become maybe the first of a series, maybe the post-qual, the whole star Wars thing, right? Yeah, it could be, it could be, you know, I, I never. It could be. I never say no to those things because if an idea hits me and I get really excited about it, then I'll go with it. Where did you get the artwork? Those of you watching on YouTube and those on the podcast, I want to teach you to watch our YouTube. There's a beautiful display frame of one of the characters or covers of your book. How did you discover the artist for that? Or who is the artist for that?

Kevin Kahn is a fantastic artist. It's the publisher that put us together and he just created this iconic image. And, you know, for all, you know, it started, of course, with the first one and then each one has just been been spectacular i'm really pleased with his work it really sets the bar high now for all of my books though you know it's like they all have to be as good at sight yeah it's it's all your books are that way with from the series because you're looking i mean you just you're kind of struck by it you're just like what is that what's going on gosh that's it's really cool looking it kind of has an alien feel to it maybe futuristic feel i guess and but it really draws the eye in you're like what's going on here and you know a

lot of books you'll see them and you're just like okay i know what that's about and but it draws them in half that battle is getting is getting your attention and so you know the covers really do that i think they're really they're really complementary to store. Any chance on some films or TV coming out? There's, this sounds like one of those books that really should be a film. It would make a great film for the plot of being able to live forever and come back and all this stuff. Yeah, it's in development with Universal. Awesome stuff. And have been for several years.

And they have a writer who's developing a script. Steven Spielberg is shepherding the whole, the whole development process, which is very, you know, dream to be, to, to have him even recognize,

you know, know my work. It's very exciting to think Steven Spielberg read my book. That's really an exciting thing. Not only that, but he wants to make into a movie. So he's very great futuristic movie that would be awesome you know i do have a i do have a setup scene for you though since this is

based in the future you can have like a setting on the beach and the charlton heston comes up and goes you damn dirty sites there's like a liberty fashion liberty that's already taken my apologies we do the jokes around here what what else can we tease out about the book? It's going to be out November 8th. And what else do you want to tease out about the book that we can give away? Maybe some plots or some stories. Well, I had the opportunity to co-write with several different authors on the story. One of the great things about a story collection is that while I did about two-thirds of the stories, about a third of them, I got to co-write.

Oh, wow. And that's a lot of fun having the chance to do that. I wrote a story with author David Yoon. Also wrote a story with my son and his partner, and Sofia La Puente. They wrote a story about sites Dali and Gaudi in Barcelona, these two sites that are in a bitter feud with one another. I always get asked by fans, can animals get to live forever? Can your pets live forever in this world?

And I was never able to address that in the series. So now there's a story about a pet within the world of Psy that's co-written with another writer michael pain who specializes in writing stories about animals and so i knew i wanted him to work on it with me this is pretty awesome i'd love to have my dogs live forever that's the one thing i hate about you know you know animals i mean i hate animals but i hate i hate the aspect of where they last about 10 to 15 years and and uh you know i'm really getting tired of going through them i would really like for them just to stay around but they're probably sick of

me that's probably why they're leaving well you know in the world of scythe they can just be brought back and and brought back to being i guess not puppies but brought back to being younger that'd be cool you all your all your life but but you know each time you bring it each time you revive a pet, it costs twice as much. Well, there you go. That would get pretty expensive since the last 10 to 15. My dogs would just be like, oh, you again?

Are you serious? I got to put up with another 10 years of you? I left early because you're a jerk and you smell bad. But, you know, I have huskies. That's how they talk. Then I give them a tree and they like me. Well, this should be pretty exciting to come out sounds like it's going to really impress your fans and they're going to love it do we want to touch on the the trilogy that came up prior to this and pitch that a little bit get people interested in that as well yeah well i mean

the the trilogy is about what happens when the scythdomom and this group of sites starts to become corrupt and it's up to these the two main characters citra and rowan who have you know citra has has is in the process of becoming a scythe and rowan sort of becomes a dark knight you know he's working in the shadows to take out all the bad sites so it's uh it's you know their journey of growth and and this you know second book is the thunderhead which is you know that is the ai and it's told from the point of view of this benevolent ai which is very godlike and wants nothing but the best for us but it can't save us from ourselves it's kind of like god maybe i mean if you believe in god i'm an atheist but it's kind of like a god

sort of figure where it's like i can't save you believe in God. I'm an atheist. But it's kind of like a God sort of figure where it's like, I can't save you guys. If you guys go screw things up, it's on you. Well, that's what the Thunderhead discovers is that to be a God means letting people make their own mistakes. Sounds like my people on Facebook. I'm just mad. And then you have the toll. It's the third in the series. Yes. The toll, everything sort of comes together have the tolls, the third in the series. Yes, the toll, everything sort of comes together in the toll.

And ultimately, we find out why we've been sort of trapped on Earth, because you think the obvious choice is that the population is growing and you have this AI that can do just about everything to to start getting us off the planet and starting to have colonies elsewhere. But that hasn't been successful. Now we find out why. We find out that, well, I don't want to give a spoiler, but we find out that there's a reason why that hasn't been happening. And the sides are very much involved in that, the bad sides. And the good sides are trying to bring back order and honor to the organization.

Always good versus evil. It's always interesting. I love how you present it in the future without the dystopian, because sometimes those get a little dark, especially that Charlton Heston one. Well, dystopia has been so big for the past 10 years or so i mean i had written a book series called unwind which was you know this dark world in the future where teenagers that nobody wants are used for their body parts ah the rule that means a hundred percent so it was the question if a hundred percent of you is alive but divided and part of different people are you still alive ah that's a

good question but the thing is with with that series having done so much of dark dystopian stories i i felt that i wanted to try to flip that and do the opposite of dystopian you know not utopian because there's really no such thing as utopia. I mean, it's more like I would call it anti-dystopian because utopia, the perfect world, can't really exist. But what happens when we get as close as we can and then we have to deal with all that comes with that? There you go. I love the complexity of that.

Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it. Everybody wants the world to be perfect, but it turns out there is no such thing as perfection but there will be complexities that will come out of out of just everything it's kind of like one of those stories where i mean not your story specifically but it's kind of like one of those parables where people want to go back in time and you know they'll live a different better life or get with somebody or whatever you know we have novels like that that come on the show and And it's like, well, that creates a whole new set of problems. Welcome to the human race.

We're always creating problems. It's what we do best. So this has been pretty wonderful. Thank you very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it, Neil. You're very welcome. I've enjoyed talking with you. There you go.

Neil, give us your plugs, your.com so people can find you on the internet, please. Sure. Storyman.com is my website. And I can be found on Instagram and Twitter at Neil Shusterman. And on Facebook, that's Neil Shusterman. There you go. He's got my name right.

There's no C in Shusterman and Neil is N-E-A-L. Do they do that to you a lot? All the time. All the time. They do that to me. They go Chris with one S and they make it two S's and they put one s on the boss and then the word neil is awesome too mine's n-e-i-l so that's probably my fault they're

spelling it wrong i don't know it was my father's name so it's good but order the books wherever fine books are sold people stay out of those alleyway bookstores i got shivved in the alleyway one time recently had to get a tetanus shot, so don't do that. Go to wherever fine books are sold, and you'll find Neil's books. Gleanings, stories from the arc of a site. It's coming out November 8th, so you want to pre-order it now

so you can get ahead of it, get ahead of your book club, be the first one to read it, and all that good stuff. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other, stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.