16 | January | 2024 | Plaid Line + PRIZM + Scottie News

By: Samson Belihu

*Warning: this article contains spoilers

To help better understand this review, it is important to know that in this book, they don’t say “kill” they say “glean”. For example, “Today I have chosen to glean you.”

‘Scythe’ is about a city in the future that is an advanced civilization,
and there’s an AI that is called “The Thundercloud” that is able to solve any problems in the world.

It is so advanced that any form of illness or injury can, and will be, cured. The AI has also stopped global warming, and world hunger. Its influence is so great that governments aren’t needed in this society, and this leads to overpopulation.

We are introduced to a group of people called “Scythes”. Scythes have one job, and it’s to stop overpopulation by gleaning people. Scythes are immortal, they also have the power to change their age and faces so they are not recognizable. To balance the power the Scythes have there are 10 commandments they must also follow or their powers will be rebuked.

People that are Scythes become Scythes by being chosen by another Scythe. Once they are chosen they can’t refuse. If they do refuse, their whole family, including the chosen person, gets gleaned.

The book introduces us to two teens, our main characters Citra and Rowan who are chosen to be Scythes by Scythe Faraday. At first they wanted to refuse because that would mean gleaning people, but when they remembered the consequences they had no choice but to accept and be apprentices for the role of Scythe.

That’s when we’re told “There can only be one Scythe!” Both are hesitant at first, but once their lives are on the line, they are determined to win no matter what it takes. That’s when they both are split up and are chosen by other Scythes.

Rowan’s teacher is called “Scythe Goddard”. Whether he is the evil main villain or not is controversial. Some say he’s doing what he has to and some say he’s gleaning more than he has to just for fun.

Citra’s monitor is Scythe Curie, a teacher determined to not be corrupt despite the jobs they have.

In the end, who’s going to win? Will it be Rowan, or will it be Citra? The only way to find out is by reading the book.

In my opinion, I recommend reading this book. It has a lot of suspense and mystery. Overall, I would give ‘Scythe’ a 9.2/10.

By Jafar Abdi

‘Fortnite’ is a battle royale made by Epic Games initially released as a survival game back in July of 2017. Seeing as how expensive the game was and how unoriginal it was, no one was really playing it until 2 months later, on September 26th, 2017, when it was rebranded as a free to play battle royale game. But it didn’t skyrocket immediately to become the game that we all know it as today; its peak came when Epic Games released its 3rd season in February of 2018.

This was probably the most influence a game had on a generation, there were celebrities like Drake and Travis Scott streaming with the games biggest creators on Twitch like Ninja and Dr. Lupo. The game had reached the top of the mountain. The servers were crashing because there were too many people playing the game. People were wearing clothes with ‘Fortnite’ characters on it, and everyone at school was talking about ‘Fortnite’. It was all ‘Fortnite’ and would be all ‘Fortnite’ for the next year.

The game just kept getting better and there were more players each day, but its downfall would come on August 1st, of 2019, when Epic came out with its 10th season, “Season X”. With the new update it brought lots of new aspects and different items to the game and most of which were not received well by the players. This is when people started complaining about how unbalanced things were, the developers were not listening, and the numbers took a massive nose dive.

For the next couple of years, more and more people stopped playing the game and people thought that would be it. The numbers were still great for a video game but it was nowhere near what it once was.

But then on November 3rd, of 2023, the makers of the game finally listened after so long and they released “Fortnite: Season OG”. This was the highest the numbers of players had ever been, the game was exactly like it was 5 years prior, and the game was flourishing. Everything was back to how it was and people who had long ago stopped playing started up again. It was the biggest comeback a game had made and it was great again.