Book Recommendation: Why Every Fan of Scythe Should Read MindWorks

When you think of Neal Shusterman, you probably picture sprawling worlds, high-stakes plots, and big philosophical questions. The Arc of a Scythe trilogy, with its mix of morality, mortality, and future tech, became one of the most defining YA series of the last decade. But MindWorks: An Uncanny Compendium of Short Fiction proves something even longtime fans might not expect: Neal’s signature depth and imagination can thrive in just a few pages.

This collection gathers forty-three (!) short stories from across his career, including four brand-new pieces, and two that return to the Scythe universe. It’s the kind of book that feels like a treasure chest, offering both nostalgia for dedicated readers and an open door for those who haven’t yet dared to enter Neal’s mind.

MindWorks: An Uncanny Compendium of Short Fiction

by Neal Shusterman
Published by: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
on November 18, 2025
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From the incomparable mind of award winner Neal Shusterman, New York Times bestselling author of the Arc of a Scythe, comes a collection of uncanny and unforgettable short stories.
This collection of unforgettable and uncanny stories could only come from the mind of award winner Neal Shusterman. Compiled for the first time in one epic volume, these stories both classic and brand-new will stretch your imagination from terror to the sublime and back again. Explore a world where bats block out the sun, where soup is a trap for your soul, or where the life-force of a glacier can bring back the dead. Journey to a place where the wind can be captured, time can be crafted into infinite attic space, or a hot tub can house an ancient monster. And revisit the Arc of the Scythe universe for two all-new tales of gleaning.
In this collection, the only thing that is truly certain is nothing is certain.

A Return to the Scythe Universe

Let’s start with what will immediately grab Scythe fans: two never-before-seen stories that take place in that same chillingly perfect world. Without giving away spoilers, they explore corners of the Thunderhead’s reach that the trilogy could only hint at, those quieter human spaces where ethics and emotion collide.

In the novels, we followed the lives of Citra and Rowan as they wrestled with immortality, corruption, and the weight of deciding who should live or die. The short stories shift the lens. We see what happens to ordinary people who live under the Thunderhead’s constant watch, or to Scythes whose choices blur the line between duty and conscience.

Each glimpse expands the mythology, reminding readers that the world of Scythe isn’t finished; it’s still evolving, still asking impossible questions. If the trilogy was the epic, MindWorks offers the echoes, the whispers that make you rethink what you thought you knew.

Neal has always written fiction that lingers long after the final page. What’s fascinating in MindWorks is how he distills that same moral complexity into stories that might only span ten pages.

On one page, you’re in a world where memories can be harvested like data. Next, you’re in a place where bats block out the sun or where time can be stretched to fill an attic. Each story reads like a thought experiment or a “what if” that escaped from a philosophy class and grew claws.

It’s the same Neal energy fans love from Unwind or Scythe, a mix of dark speculation and surprising tenderness, but delivered in snapshots. You could read one story on your lunch break and still walk away questioning what makes us human.

Longtime readers will notice that many of the older stories have been reworked and modernized. Neal went back to his earliest pieces and updated them for today’s readers, refining language and technology while keeping the core ideas intact. The result is both a retrospective and a reinvention, showing how his voice has evolved from sharp and curious to fully confident and fearless.

The collection also plays with genre more freely than his novels: horror, science fiction, fable, and even absurdist humor all have a place. It’s like stepping inside his creative process and watching the threads that would later weave into Scythe, Dry, and Challenger Deep.

Why MindWorks Belongs on Your Shelf

If you loved Scythe for its mix of ethics and imagination, MindWorks gives you more of that DNA in concentrated form. It’s eerie, brilliant, and bursting with ideas that feel both timeless and current. You don’t need to read the stories in order, just open to any page, and you’ll find something that challenges your brain or tugs at your heart.

Most of all, MindWorks reminds us why Neal continues to define modern speculative fiction. He doesn’t just build worlds; he makes us question our own. And for fans of Scythe, that’s the perfect kind of immortality.