Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Incarceron (Incarceron, #1)

by Catherine Fisher

Incarceron - a futuristic prison, sealed from view, where the descendants of the original prisoners live in a dark world torn by rivalry and savagery. It is a terrifying mix of high technology - a living building which pervades the novel as an ever-watchful, ever-vengeful character, and a typical medieval torture chamber - chains, great halls, dungeons. A young prisoner, Finn, has haunting visions of an earlier life, and cannot believe he was born here and has always been here.

In the outer world, Claudia, daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, is trapped in her own form of prison - a futuristic world constructed beautifully to look like a past era, an imminent marriage she dreads. She knows nothing of Incarceron, except that it exists. But there comes a moment when Finn, inside Incarceron, and Claudia, outside, simultaneously find a device - a crystal key, through which they can talk to each other. And so the plan for Finn's escape is born ... "I loved the book. It's a crazy, cool, dark world ... it's a great story." -- Taylor Lautner, star of the Twilight movies

Reviewed by Briana @ Pages Unbound on

3 of 5 stars

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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.

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  • Started reading
  • 21 November, 2011: Finished reading
  • 21 November, 2011: Reviewed