The Just City

I loved this novel by Jo Walton! She writes science fiction that doesn't feel like science fiction, and this could be an appropriate Young Adult novel but it's definitely for adults. It's a really gripping story that makes the reader think!

Here's the plot: the goddess Athena thinks it would be interesting to create Plato's Republic, as he described in his writings. So she brings together all the scholars who are interested in the same thing - just plucks them out of time when they pray to her - and brings them to Atlantis, in the time long before it will be swallowed by the sea. Together with worker robots Athena has brought from the distant future, these scholars, or "masters," create a city, which they then populate with 10,000 ten-year-old children, bought as slaves from markets in the early Christian era. One of those children is Athena's brother Apollo, who became human in order to be part of Athena's experiment and learn what humanity is like. The masters plan to raise the children to become their most excellent selves, philosopher kings, in the Just City of Plato's ideal.


Everything is going along fine, with most of the children and masters embracing all that the Just City is supposed to be. But then Socrates shows up, and he raises questions that no one had considered before. What follows are debates about slavery, humanity, the role of women, deities, and other moral questions.

This is definitely a novel of the mind, but there is enough action (and even sex) to keep most readers' attention. My only real issue is that it ends rather precipitously, but I'm pretty sure it's the first book of a trilogy so I'll be on the edge of my seat for book two!

The Just City