Incarceron (Incarceron, #1)

by Catherine Fisher

Incarceron is a prison so vast that it contains not only cells, but also metal forests, dilapidated cities, and vast wilderness. Finn, a seventeen-year-old prisoner, has no memory of his childhood and is sure that he came from Outside Incarceron. Very few prisoners believe that there is an Outside, however, which makes escape seems impossible. And then Finn finds a crystal key that allows him to communicate with a girl named Claudia. She claims to live Outside. She is the daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, and doomed to an arranged marriage. Finn is determined to escape the prison, and Claudia believes she can help him. But they don't realize that there is more to Incarceron than meets the eye. Escape will take their greatest courage and cost more than they know. - Publisher.

• ISBN10: 0803733968
• ISBN13: 9780803733961
• Publish Date: 26 January 2010 (first published 3 May 2007)
• Publish Status: Remaindered
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Dial Books for Young Readers,US
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 442
• Language: English

Reviews

[mrs_mander_reads]

I really liked the detail in this book. Fisher does a great job of creating a believable world, and believable problems in it. There are several twists that I never saw coming, and I'm dying to get my hands on the next one.

[Briana @ Pages Unbound]

Incarceron is a creative book and an interesting read, but it falls just a little flat of expectations. The premise of a supposedly idyllic, sentient prison gone wrong and a world Outside that has tried to stop progress and live in the past is intriguing, but Fisher has failed to do them justice. To begin, the world-building is a little shoddy. The Outside world is a strange mix of the eighteenth century and a technology-savvy future, but the science behind this future is incredibly hazy. There are a number of references to “equipment”, scanning devices, listening devices, and so forth, but Fisher stops far short of explaining how any of these things might work or what they even look like. Readers will need to furnish a good deal of their own imagination to make all these mysterious “devices” really come to life. The description of Incarceron is much more thorough and definitely creepy, with glowing red eyes that watch Prisoners always and the ability to “fix” humans with the addition of metal body parts.

The characters of Incarceron, including Incarceron itself, are one of its strong points. They are diverse, consisting of the foolish Caspar, the scheming sorceress Queen Sia, the stern Warden of Incarceron, his intelligent daughter Claudia, the Starseer Finn, his oathbrother Keiro, the loyal girl Attia, and others. The downside is that few of the characters are truly likeable, barring Claudia’s tutor Jared. Claudia and Finn, the protagonists, are not wholly disagreeable, but they have learned they must sometimes be cruel if they wish to survive, and the attitude (if understandable in their world) will probably keep readers from wanting to become their best friends.

The characters are also not particularly philosophical, which is somewhat surprising considering half of them are Prisoners trying to escape a prison they were born in, uncertain that the world Outside is even real. Fisher does drop a few sentences to think about here and there, and they are pleasant finds, but the truth is that Incarceron neither asks nor answers many of the questions that it could. It is an interesting book, but not particularly deep. It tells a fun story, but ultimately fails to touch or speak to readers in any meaningful way.

This review was also posted at Pages Unbound Book Reviews.

[celinenyx]

As a book that has been sitting on my TBR shelf for a long time, I only had a rather limited view of what this book was about. I saw beautiful cover, heard about a massive prison, and an impossible love between someone inside and someone outside of said prison, and I was smitten.

Incarceron isn't just a prison. It as a social experiment. All of the world's outcasts and dissidents will be locked up. Inside, a perfect society will form. On the outside, time will be put to a stop. No scientific progress will be allowed, and society will be made to resemble as it used to be in the Victorian period.

The experiment doesn't go as planned. Inside Incarceron the prisoners face a daily hell of famine and violence, under the ever watchful eye of the Prison.

The setting of Incarceron is very detailed, both inside and outside of the prison. I loved reading about the strange combination of advanced technology with a thick coat of Victorian. There are computer screens behind servants entrances, rooms that shift through dimensions and other exciting combinations.

What I really liked in this book was that the romance was subtle. I can't remember the last time in a young adult book where the romance between the two main characters wasn't excruciatingly obvious, with instant lusting and "I love you"-s within a week. By the end of Incarceron you're not even sure whether they will be a couple or not. The attraction between Finn and Claudia was subtle and sweet.

As a part of this book is set in a prison, there are quite some gruesome bits. I thought Ms Fisher found a great balance here. Without making it seem too bleak, she managed to portray the cruelty of man when forced to survive in awful conditions.

This reads mostly like an adventure novel, which is not my favourite, but it was a well done adventure novel in my humble opinion. There were enough plot twists to keep me satisfied and interested throughout the book. I'm looking forward to read the second book of the series, Sapphique.

[Artemis]

Eh. This was okay. it kept tapering off in parts and I didn't care to much for the characters. I won't be reading the next book for sure though. Not interesting enough.

[ladygrey]

This is honestly one of the best fantasy/sci fi books I've read in a long time. And it's a book that legitimately blends those two genres.

I liked the way it's written, her sense of language that was straight forward and also wonderfully entwined description.

I liked that the plot surprised me. At first, like a lot of young adult fiction, I could see where it was going before there characters which is when I normally get impatient and think, "Get on with it, already!" but [a:Catherine Fisher|190887|Catherine Fisher|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1309461768p2/190887.jpg] got on with it fairy quickly and then the plot kept twisting and turning and I really enjoyed it.

The characters were great and I found myself attached to them all, even the ones who were supposed to be the bad guy or unlikable. Even after I've finished they linger and I can't wait to read [b:Sapphique|4499214|Sapphique (Incarceron, #2)|Catherine Fisher|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Mtx56jW%2BL._SL75_.jpg|4548192] and read more of what happens to them.

[b:Incarceron|332775|Incarceron (Incarceron, #1)|Catherine Fisher|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51baJ9ujjcL._SL75_.jpg|323310] is really a fantastic book, well written, surprising, filled with mysteries and intriguing characters. I'm impressed.