- Publisher : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
- Publication date : November 18, 2025
- Language : English
- Print length : 592 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1665990783
- ISBN-13 : 978-1665990783
- Author: Neal Shusterman
Mindworks by Neal Shustermanis a delightful collection of strange short stories. With over 40 different stories, there is a lot for anyone to enjoy in this book. Some of them are just silly and funny, many read like modern Twilight Zone episodes with strange twists and turns.
Shusterman is known best for his Scythe series of books. There is one Scythe related story and an ‘interview’ with several of the Scythe characters at the end of Mindworks. I have not read any of the series so I can’t comment on how well those relate to the rest of the saga or if they add much, but they were enjoyable without knowing any of the details. While I enjoyed this foray into the world of Scythe, I enjoyed the other stories in the book even more. Perhaps if I was a Scythe aficionado, I would have a different perspective.
The book is broken up into seven groups of stories. The groupings are not hard and fast, but they do give a running theme for a section, even when there are very different stories within any section.
- Forces of Nature
- Natural creatures and other forces of
- Angels, Demons, Monsters and a Tree
- The section title tells it all. I especially like “Butterball” – short, sweet, silly and fun
- The Wheel of Destiny
- Mostly things going wrong at a major scale.
- Attics, Basements, Windows and Walls
- Mostly things going wrong at a smaller scale
- The Living, The Dead and The Undecided
- Zombies, glacial spirits, and other dead or mostly dead.
- I’m Not Myself Today
- Body swapping, Mind merging, X-mas shopping, etc
- You Read What You Sow (The World of Scythe)
- A story and an interview in the Scythe universe
I really enjoyed this entire Mindworks collection. From horror to science fiction to fantastical journeys to just plain weird and uncanny, these are worth reading. One of these days, I will need to find time to check out other Shusterman works, like the Scythe series at some point. He is definitely a talented writer of interesting and entertaining stories.
Matt Truxaw’s newest book is Monster, which released on 1/12/2026. This urban fantasy, horror, thriller will keep you turning the pages.
He is also the author of the hard science fiction thrillers: “Plastiphobia/Plastivore” and “Anthrophobia: A Teacher’s Tale”
You can find them all on Amazon in Paperback, Hardback, Kindle and/or free to read with Kindle Unlimited.
When you read any of them, he would really appreciate a review/rating on Amazon or your favorite book seller/book reader site.
More about Matt:
He was born in Orange County California many years ago and he still lives there. He has been reading books for most of those years and writing up book reviews for the last few years. He gets most of his books out of the library so expect a lot of old science fiction classics book reviews and other science related reviews in addition to newer books he comes across.
If you want to be ‘in-the-loop’ on these and other works, you can follow his author’s page on Amazon or his Facebook page.
For more reviews and articles by Matt here on Amazing Stories (Click here).
