The Just City - BokDraken

368 sidor

På English

Publicerades 2015

ISBN:: 978-0-7653-3266-0
Goodreads:: 22055276

Created as an experiment by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, the Just City is a planned community, populated by over ten thousand children and a few hundred adult teachers from all eras of history, along with some handy robots from the far human future - all set down together on a Mediterranean island in the distant past. The student Simmea, born an Egyptian farmer's daughter sometime between 500 and 1000 A.D, is a brilliant child, eager for knowledge, ready to strive to be her best self. The teacher Maia was once Ethel, a young Victorian lady of much learning and few prospects, who prayed to Pallas Athene in an unguarded moment during a trip to Rome - and, in an instant, found herself in the Just City with grey-eyed Athene standing unmistakably before her. Meanwhile, Apollo - stunned by the realization that there are things mortals understand better than he …

Created as an experiment by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, the Just City is a planned community, populated by over ten thousand children and a few hundred adult teachers from all eras of history, along with some handy robots from the far human future - all set down together on a Mediterranean island in the distant past. The student Simmea, born an Egyptian farmer's daughter sometime between 500 and 1000 A.D, is a brilliant child, eager for knowledge, ready to strive to be her best self. The teacher Maia was once Ethel, a young Victorian lady of much learning and few prospects, who prayed to Pallas Athene in an unguarded moment during a trip to Rome - and, in an instant, found herself in the Just City with grey-eyed Athene standing unmistakably before her. Meanwhile, Apollo - stunned by the realization that there are things mortals understand better than he does - has arranged to live a human life, and has come to the City as one of the children. He knows his true identity, and conceals it from his peers. For this lifetime, he is prone to all the troubles of being human. Then, a few years in, Sokrates arrives - the same Sokrates recorded by Plato himself - to ask all the troublesome questions you would expect. What happens next is a tale only the brilliant Jo Walton could tell

2 utgåvor

Björn recenserade The Just City av Jo Walton

None

4 stjärnor

I want to knock a star off for being yet another damn trilogy, but I knew that going in so that'd make me a bit of a hypocrite, wouldn't it?

Then again, the novel (or third thereof) is all about getting yourself into things you should see coming, and the setup is so brilliant (and a neat jab in the ribs to too many YA 'verses to boot). The Greek gods are bored and puzzled by mankind (that's always a good start), so they kidnap a few hundred Platonian philosophers from all eras, plonk them down on an antique Greek island along with 10,000 likewise kidnapped children, and tell them "There. Now build Plato's Republic for real, in detail. Go on, teach the kids about beauty and justice, divide them into factions according to their worth, get them breeding without that pesky emotional bond, all that stuff."

Fun fact: Plato, …

I want to knock a star off for being yet another damn trilogy, but I knew that going in so that'd make me a bit of a hypocrite, wouldn't it?

Then again, the novel (or third thereof) is all about getting yourself into things you should see coming, and the setup is so brilliant (and a neat jab in the ribs to too many YA 'verses to boot). The Greek gods are bored and puzzled by mankind (that's always a good start), so they kidnap a few hundred Platonian philosophers from all eras, plonk them down on an antique Greek island along with 10,000 likewise kidnapped children, and tell them "There. Now build Plato's Republic for real, in detail. Go on, teach the kids about beauty and justice, divide them into factions according to their worth, get them breeding without that pesky emotional bond, all that stuff."

Fun fact: Plato, for all his influence on Western so-called civilization, was kind of a fascist asshole, and the Republic may or may not be about as practical as actually locking a cat in a box with some radioactive material. So The Just City comes to be largely about the difference between idealism and pragmatism, theory and practice, freedom and society, all the while gleefully picking apart the old (and I do mean old) divide-the-kids-into-houses-and-put-them-in-love-triangles plot with an only slightly poisoned pen.

No, The Just City isn't perfect. But that's kind of the point, isn't it?

Karolin

betygsatte den

2 december 2018