50 Fun Facts About Neal Shusterman

In Neal Shusterman's Scythe, which benevolent AI governs a world that has conquered death?

The Thunderhead runs every essential function on Earth, yet it may not interfere with the scythes and can only watch what they do.

In Neal Shusterman's Scythe, what do scythes call the permanent killings they are ordered to carry out?

Gleaning is the scythes' word for a death that cannot be undone, in a future where everyone else who dies is simply revived.

In Neal Shusterman's Unwind, the Bill of Life ends a second American civil war fought over which issue?

Abortion caused the Heartland War, and the peace deal banned it while letting parents have children aged 13 to 18 unwound instead.

Neal Shusterman's Challenger Deep is named after the deepest known point of Earth's seabed, found where?

The Mariana Trench holds the real Challenger Deep, and in the novel Caden Bosch imagines sailing there under a captain whose parrot urges mutiny.

Neal Shusterman says his deadly amusement park thriller Full Tilt was inspired by a hellish day where?

Six Flags gave him the bad day behind Full Tilt, in which Blake must survive rides that can truly kill in order to rescue his younger brother Quinn.

Thrown out of class daily in third grade, Neal Shusterman was sent instead to which school staff member?

The librarian, Judith Shapiro, took him in, and he went from the slowest reader in his class to winning the school's reading award.

Neal Shusterman says he pictured the robed killers of Scythe as resembling which Star Wars group?

The Jedi Order was his model for the scythes, a monk-like brotherhood trusted with thinning the population once nature could no longer do it.

In Neal Shusterman's Dry, a drought called the Tap-Out empties the taps of which US state?

California runs out of water in the novel, and a quiet suburban street turns into a war zone as neighbours hunt for something to drink.

Neal Shusterman says he regularly takes which kind of solo trip to get his writing done?

A cruise is his floating office: he sails alone to write, and jokes that working on board makes the holiday tax deductible.

The unnoticed boy in Neal Shusterman's The Schwa Was Here shares his surname with which feature of English?

An unstressed vowel, the schwa is written as an upside-down e, and the idea came when Shusterman failed to notice a boy with his hand up.

Neal Shusterman, author of Scythe and Unwind, was born and raised in which borough of New York City?

Brooklyn was home until he was sixteen, and it is also the home of Antsy Bonano, the narrator of The Schwa Was Here.

At sixteen, Neal Shusterman moved abroad with his family to which foreign capital, where he finished high school?

Mexico City was home for his last two years of school, at the American School Foundation, and he says living abroad gave him lasting confidence.

Neal Shusterman's Challenger Deep, a novel about a teenager's mental illness, won which major prize in 2015?

The National Book Award for Young People's Literature went to the novel, and Shusterman invited his son on stage to help him accept it.

Under which pen name did Neal Shusterman write young adult novelizations of X-Files episodes in the 1990s?

Easton Royce is the name on Voltage, his book version of an episode about a boy who controls lightning, and on tie-ins for Space: Above and Beyond.

Neal Shusterman wrote the TV version of The Werewolf of Fever Swamp for which 1990s children's horror series?

Goosebumps hired him to turn the swamp tale into a TV special, and he also wrote episodes of Animorphs and The Haunting Hour.

Which author invited Neal Shusterman to write novels running parallel to his own classic about a child commander?

Orson Scott Card wanted companion novels to Ender's Game, but their schedules clashed, so he ended up writing the parallel series himself.

At the end of Neal Shusterman's Scythe, Citra Terranova names herself after which historical figure?

Anastasia Romanov, the Russian grand duchess, becomes Citra's Patron Historic, and she picks teal robes to go with the new name.

In Neal Shusterman's Arc of a Scythe series, Rowan Damisch hunts corrupt scythes under which self-chosen name?

Lucifer, after the fallen angel, is the name Rowan takes as an unordained vigilante, burning the scythes he kills so they cannot be revived.

In Neal Shusterman's Unwind, what is the term for a child like Lev, raised from birth to be unwound?

A tithe is a child given up as an act of religious charity, and Lev's unwinding was planned from his birth, so at first he resists being rescued.

In Neal Shusterman's Everlost, what name is given to the children stranded in the world between life and death?

Afterlights keep the exact appearance they had at the moment they died, cannot be seen by the living, and include no adults.

In Neal Shusterman's Everlost, Mary Hightower shelters lost children in which destroyed New York landmark?

The Twin Towers stand on in Everlost because places that were loved enough cross over when they are destroyed, as cherished objects do.

In Neal Shusterman's Everwild, Mary Hightower travels in the ghost of which famous airship?

The Hindenburg survives in Everlost as a memory of the airship that burned, and Mary uses it to spread her propaganda and win followers quickly.

In Neal Shusterman's Unwind, the Admiral hides runaway teenagers at the Graveyard, a refuge full of what?

Retired aircraft fill the Graveyard, which the Admiral runs as a haven to atone for helping to create the law that allows unwinding.

In Roxy, which Neal Shusterman wrote with his son, the title character is the human form of what?

A painkiller drug, OxyContin, becomes the seductive Roxy, who bets the Adderall god Addison over which of them can bring a human to the Party first.

In Neal Shusterman's Game Changer, Ash is knocked into parallel universes by a hard hit while playing which sport?

Football sends Ash into another dimension with a single hit, and each new world drifts further from his own until he sees life through different eyes.

In Neal Shusterman's All Better Now, survivors of a deadly virus are left with which unexpected lasting effect?

Utter contentment follows recovery, which alarms the powerful people who profit from unhappy customers and sets off a race for a vaccine.

Neal Shusterman's graphic novel Courage to Dream sets Jewish folklore and tales of hope during which atrocity?

The Holocaust is explored through five interlocking narratives illustrated by Andrés Vera Martínez, and the result was named a Sydney Taylor Honor book.

Which celebrated director became involved in Universal's planned film of Neal Shusterman's Scythe in 2022?

Steven Spielberg joined as the script was redrafted, six years after Universal bought the film rights to the whole Arc of a Scythe series.

Neal Shusterman's Scythe was named an Honor Book for which American prize for young adult literature?

The Printz Award named Scythe an Honor Book in 2017, recognising a novel that set out to imagine a world gone right and what that would cost.

In Neal Shusterman's Scythe, which scythe first takes Citra Terranova and Rowan Damisch on as his apprentices?

Faraday trains the pair in a role neither wants, and when the scythes decree that the winner must kill the loser he tries to free them both.

In the second Arc of a Scythe novel by Neal Shusterman, Scythe Goddard sinks which island after losing an inquest?

Endura, seat of the scythes' world council, goes under, and the planet's governing AI answers the disaster with a wail from every speaker on Earth.

In the Arc of a Scythe finale by Neal Shusterman, the Tonists revere Greyson as a prophet under which title?

The Toll is the name the Tonists give Greyson, the only person the world's governing AI still speaks to after it falls silent for everyone else.

Connor Lassiter's escape in Neal Shusterman's Unwind earns him a media nickname pairing AWOL with which Ohio city?

Akron gives Connor the name the Akron AWOL after he shoots a Juvey-cop with the officer's own tranquilizer gun and causes a huge pile-up.

In Neal Shusterman's Unwind, the legal practice known as storking means doing what with an unwanted newborn?

Abandoning it to strangers became accepted once the Bill of Life passed, and Connor picks up one such baby girl during his escape; the runaways later name her Didi.

In Neal Shusterman's Unwind, Cyrus Finch fights urges to steal that come from which transplant?

Part of his brain came from an unwound boy named Tyler, whose habits and feelings keep surfacing until CyFi lets him speak to his parents again.

In Neal Shusterman's The Schwa Was Here, Calvin Schwa spends his whole college fund on what, hoping to be noticed?

A billboard showing his face goes up, but the road beneath it turns out to be under construction, so nobody drives past to see it.

In Neal Shusterman's Antsy Does Time, what does Antsy Bonano sign over to a classmate who claims to be dying?

A month of his life is the gift, and soon the whole school copies him, until a relative who donated two years suffers a heart attack.

In Neal Shusterman's The Eyes of Kid Midas, Kevin finds which wish-granting object on top of a mountain?

Sunglasses soaked in the mountain's magic grant every wish Kevin makes, from ice-cream cones to video games, but they cannot undo a single one.

Dread Locks, the first of Neal Shusterman's Dark Fusion books, recasts which Greek monster as a new girl in town?

Medusa becomes Tara, whose golden curls seem almost alive and whose eyes stay hidden, while her new friends pick up odd habits such as eating dirt.

In Neal Shusterman's Red Rider's Hood, a fairy-tale retelling, the hero Red drives around town in what?

A Mustang painted blood red stands in for the famous hood, and Red joins a gang called the Wolves to avenge the mugging of his grandmother.

In Tesla's Attic, co-written by Neal Shusterman, what hits Nick on the head when he opens his attic door?

A toaster falls on him, the first of a houseful of odd antiques with extraordinary powers that Nick unwisely sells off at a garage sale.

The secret society of Neal Shusterman's Downsiders, forbidden to visit the surface, lives beneath which city?

New York hides the Downsiders, and Talon, a boy from below, falls for a surface girl named Lindsay and is sentenced to death for showing her his world.

Which early Neal Shusterman novel follows second-best students whose pranks on their rivals turn dangerous?

The Shadow Club begins as a place for runners-up to share how they feel, until its members each secretly pull a worse prank and blame an outsider.

Brew, the misjudged loner of Neal Shusterman's Bruiser, has which strange effect on the people he comes to love?

He absorbs their pain, from heartache to bruises and broken bones, which is why Brew has always kept other people at a distance.

In Neal Shusterman's The Dark Side of Nowhere, Jason Miller learns that his parents and neighbours are what?

Alien invaders have quietly taken over his town, and Jason, one of their second generation, is given a power glove and told to lead the others.

At which university did Neal Shusterman double-major in psychology and theatre before starting his writing career?

UC Irvine gave him both subjects, a pairing his own biography credits for his approach to character, and he had a book deal within a year of leaving.

Neal Shusterman competed on his university's varsity team in which sport while studying psychology and theatre?

Swimming was his varsity sport, and he later put the degrees to work as well, writing stage plays and directing films alongside his novels.

Which lifetime honour for writing for teens did the ALA's young adult division give Neal Shusterman in 2024?

Margaret A. Edwards Award judges cited nine of his books, from Unwind to the Arc of a Scythe trilogy, and he called it the honour of a lifetime.

Neal Shusterman wrote for which Disney Channel Original Movie about a hologram who joins a teenage rock band?

Pixel Perfect aired in 2004 and stars Loretta, a hologram built by a teenager to dance for his best friend's struggling band, the Zetta Bytes.

Which of Neal Shusterman's children drew the pictures in Challenger Deep and inspired its portrait of mental illness?

Brendan is both the artist and the inspiration, since the novel draws on his teenage years, and he joined his father on stage to accept its top prize.