Incarceron (Incarceron #1) by Catherine Fisher - My Review
The concept of Incarceron is fascinating : a very alive prison which Originally was created to "take care" of its inmates by educating, civilizing, and nurturing them, creating an Utopian society. After a time something had change - instead of Utopian society the inmates turn to savage tribes. Incarceron place is so big - it contains not only cells, metal forests, dilapidated cites and vast wilderness. It is a metal world where nothing is created or wasted and where all who live there, lives in a cutthroat world, fighting for food and survival. As a live identity, Incarceron observes everything that goes on inside it's walls, with its red seeing eyes. Omnipresent to the mortals within, it is the world they have ever known. As time pass by this place had been forgotten as no one can enter and no one can leave its place. Very few prisoners believe that there is an outside, however makes escape seems impossible. Our main character Finn believe in it too.
Finn, is a seventeen year old boy who was created by the technology that runs Incarceron. He knows nothing about his past. He only know that two years ago, he woke in a dark squalid cell , mad with fear and lost memories. Finn started to seeks answers. Finn believes that there's another place outside Incarceron and he might have came there. Finn, and his friends - Keiro, Attia and Gildas try to escape the prison like many have. But they have something others didn't- the one person with the visions of the outside believed to be given to him by Sapphique - they believe that Finn is a starseer - this assumption got stronger when Finn discovers a a crystal key with the same strange marking as the tattoo on his wrist. The key allows him to communicate with a mysterious girl name Claudia, who claims that she's from the Outside.....
The outside world, is trapped in time by the royal dynasty's will. There are protocols, that mingle technology with the 17th century customs. The Protocol the banned usage of anything automated. So while their world is run by computers, society is living in the past. So beside the time the protocol is one of the resons that the people outside forgot about the experience that was Incarceron.
Claudia is the daughter of Incarceron's Warden. She lives in a manor house stuck in a 17th century world run by computers. in a world that run buy the protocol -were artists and poets are doomed to endless repetitions of the past. She also, had been arranged to marry the spoiled prince of the realm. The problem - the royal heir Giles at age 15, had been killed in a riding accident and now Claudia is forced into an engagement with his snarky step-brother, Caspar.
This engagement is the result of the plotting of her powerful father the Warden. he had planed this since she was at age of 5 and prepared her to become queen. Claudia is terrified of him. Frustrated with her bleak future and cutthroat political games in which she finds herself ensnared. Claudia feel that things are not what they seem, that things are corrupt. She determined to prove that. she right - the monarchy has too many secrets. One of them is Incarceron, so when she finds a crystal key in her father's study (the Warden knows the secrets of Incarceron, but he has no plans to share them, not even to his only daughter), she finds a link to a world that is nothing like the ideal utopia. with this key. she also found that she can communicate with Finn on the other side.
So now - Finn and Claudia, crossed paths and their all world turned upside down. Finn want to escape, convinced by strange visions, the mysterious crystal key, and the legend of Sapphique, the only man who ever escaped Incarceron, he is determined to escape as well. Claudia is surprised that Finn wants to escape since the outside world has been told Incarceron is somewhat of a paradise. She has her own problems because she is slated to marry this creepy future king. She agrees to help him escape. She want the adventure and its thrill.
The book switches back and forth between Claudia and Finn's. The switches were often very quick - only page or two for each person's story. Some people might find the rapid switches between viewpoints a bit jarring.
Catherine Fisher
Catherine Fisher was born in Newport, Wales. She graduated from the University of Wales with a degree in English and a fascination for myth and history. She has worked in education and archaeology and as a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Glamorgan. She is a Fellow of the Welsh Academy.
Catherine is an acclaimed poet and novelist, regularly lecturing and giving readings to groups of all ages. She leads sessions for teachers and librarians and is an experienced broadcaster and adjudicator. She lives in Newport, Gwent.
Catherine has won many awards and much critical acclaim for her work. Her poetry has appeared in leading periodicals and anthologies and her volume Immrama won the WAC Young Writers' Prize. She won the Cardiff International Poetry Competition in 1990.
Her first novel, The Conjuror's Game, was shortlisted for the Smarties Books prize and The Snow-Walker's Son for the W.H.Smith Award. Equally acclaimed is her quartet The Book of the Crow, a classic of fantasy fiction.
The Oracle, the first volume in the Oracle trilogy, blends Egyptian and Greek elements of magic and adventure and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children's Books prize. The trilogy was an international bestseller and has appeared in over twenty languages. The Candleman won the Welsh Books Council's Tir Na n'Og Prize and Catherine was also shortlisted for the remarkable Corbenic, a modern re-inventing of the Grail legend.
Her futuristic novel Incarceron was published to widespread praise in 2007, winning the Mythopoeic Society of America's Children's Fiction Award and selected by The Times as its Children's Book of the Year. The sequel, Sapphique, was published in September 2008.
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