Incarceron | |||||
Catherine Fisher | |||||
Dial, 448 pages | |||||
A review by Dan Shade
Our story begins with Claudia, the Warden's daughter who is soon to be married to Prince Casper, son of the
ruling Queen. Claudia appears to be 15- or 16-years-old. Our other character of main interest is Finn,
a 17-year-old prisoner.
Perhaps I should start further back. You see, the King had two sons but when the eldest was five or so, he fell
sick and died. Or so the rumor goes. There is plenty of doubt about what actually happened to the King's eldest
son. Most think he was killed but Claudia thinks otherwise and the plot of the book mostly concerns Claudia's
efforts to save the eldest son, Giles, and avoid marriage to the younger one, Casper. Casper is a silly,
spoiled, selfish boy. Claudia and Giles were betrothed just prior to Giles's death. He was a smart, kind
and handsome child.
Everyone in this book lives an a chosen period or era of the past. After the years of rage, of which we are
told nothing but one can assume it was a war of some type, the government decided to return to a simpler
period in history. They chose to take their society back to the days of knights, ladies, castles, and
moats. I suppose they believed this to be a good period because people lived in their caste and there was
no aspiration for a peasant to be King. It was impossible to climb the social ladder
so one was thought to be satisfied with one's
lot in life. Servants were happy to be servants and stable boys were happy to be stable boys. Not
Claudia. She is not happy to be queen if it means marriage to Casper.
Finn, on the other hand, is a prisoner of Incarceron. He and his companions believe they have discovered a
way to escape from the prison and throughout the book they keep moving towards that goal. Finn's friends are
powerful and therefore able to protect him. This is important because he blacks out at times and has visions. The
visions seldom make sense because they are really memories of life before he was incarcerated. No one fully
accepts that Finn once had a life outside of the prison but they believe him enough to help him try to escape.
This society has technology far in advance of our own. They keep it hidden but powerful people, like the
warden of Incarceron, use it frequently. It was their technology that was able to spawn a "living, thinking"
prison. Sometimes the technology is used to do simple things like provide the backdrops of rooms. There is
no evidence in the book that the common citizen has access to any technology at all. Apples are picked by
hand and fields plowed with horses. Even medical science seems to adhere to the period. In all, it seems
a foolish idea to me.
Returning to Claudia, she believes that Giles is alive and is certain she knows he is being held in
Incarceron. Claudia, with the help of her personal tutor, Jared, hatch a plot to break into her father's
office and find Giles. She is indeed successful in gaining access to the warden's office and what she
discovers there is truly surprising. Shocking, even. Were I to tell you more the book would not be worth
reading as I would be giving away the biggest surprise.
Character development is great as one comes to hate the Warden as quickly as one comes to
love Claudia. Plot-wise, the story moves a bit slowly. It seems to take forever to accomplish the
smallest of things. This could be because the society is so regulated and Claudia is watched over so
carefully. This is not a complex book either. It primarily concerns itself with Claudia's plans to
find Finn and Finn's efforts to escape. There are no real subplots. However, it is very clear at the
end that a sequel will be forthcoming (besides I checked Amazon.com).
Dan Shade is a retired college professor who loves to read young adult science fiction, fantasy, and horror. But he doesn't draw the line there. He also enjoys writing science fiction and hopes to publish someday. In the meantime, you can find him at lostbooks.org (under construction). |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
If you find any errors, typos or other stuff worth mentioning,
please send it to editor@sfsite.com.
Copyright © 1996-2014 SF Site All Rights Reserved Worldwide