Provocative, compelling, thrilling, dark, dangerous, gritty, and disturbing. This is a book that I dreamt about for a week after reading it. Not a novel that one will soon forget. Although it takes about thirty pages to set up, from there on the reader will be enveloped in a fantasy world gone wrong. Creatures beyond description haunt Incarceron's walls.
The setting acts as a character in this dystopian fantasy. Incarceron is a prison that was set up to house the worst of all society--it has been sealed up for centuries and has evolved into a living, breathing, thinking entity. Like Hal, the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the prison takes over. It sees all and knows all. No one has ever escaped except one man -- one man who has become a legend, a myth, and a fairy tale. Only Sapphique has escaped and knows the way.
Finn is not like the other prisoners; he remembers Outside. He is sworn to his oath brother Keiro and is tied to Gildas, a Sapienti who seeks the Outside. Because Finn sees visions, he is known as a starseer. He even has dreams of Sapphique leading him from Incarceron.
The warden of Incarceron holds the fate of the prison, and his daughter Claudia will marry and become Queen of the realm. That is, until she finds a key that unlocks Incarceron. Claudia and Finn are able to communicate through this key.
On the Outside, life seems perfect, and it is except that there is no freedom. "We are chained hand and foot...enslaved to a static, empty world where men and women can't read, where scientific advances of the ages are the preserve of the rich, where artists and poets are doomed to endless repititions and sterile reworkings of past masterpieces. Nothing is new. New does not exist. Nothing changes, nothing grows, evolves, develops. Time has stopped. Progress is forbidden." (Incarceron, p. 243) 448 pages Ages 13 and up
Once Incarceron is threatened, the realm will tremble. Book Two: Sapphique due out December 2010.
Highly, highly recommended grades 8-up. May not be suitable for younger readers due to violence. No sex, no language.Recommended by Pamela Thompson, Librarian.
Check out her ya blog at https://booksbypamelathompson.blogspot.com/
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Finn cannot remember his childhood. He cannot remember his life before Incarceron—a prison that has been sealed for centuries, where inmates live in cells, dilapidated cities, and unbounded wilderness. No one has ever escaped. But then he finds a crystal key and a girl named Claudia.
Claudia’s father is the Warden of Incarceron. And Claudia is about to become a kind of prisoner herself, doomed to an arranged marriage. If she helps Finn in his escape, she will need his help in return.
But they don’t realize that there is more to Incarceron than meets the eye. Escape will take their greatest courage and cost far more than they know . . . because Incarceron is alive.---from the publisher
442 pages 978-0142418529 Ages 13 and up
