The Just City

by Jo Walton

Overview

"Here in the Just City you will become your best selves. You will learn and grow and strive to be excellent."

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250811837
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/13/2015
Series:	Thessaly , #1
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	468,082
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.82(d)

About the Author

JO WALTON won the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 2012 for her novel Among Others. Before that, she won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and her novel Tooth and Claw won the World Fantasy Award in 2004. The novels of her Small Change sequence—Farthing, Ha'penny, and Half a Crown—have won acclaim ranging from national newspapers to the Romantic Times Critics' Choice Award. A native of Wales, she lives in Montreal.

Editorial Reviews

" A fast-moving yet thought-provoking novel."—School Library Journal

"Walton's no-nonsense prose and dialogue are the kind of thing I can read anywhere, in any situation, and fall into a world of intelligent people speaking to each other intelligently in interesting ways...Brilliant, compelling, and frankly unputdownable."—NPR

"An extraordinarily ambitious achievement."—The Globe and Mail

From the Publisher

10/13/2014
Hugo-winner Walton (My Real Children) explores the temptations and pitfalls of utopia in a genre-bending thought experiment: what if the Greek gods recreated Plato’s Republic with human time travelers? Centuries before the Trojan War, on the volcanic island of Thera, the goddess Athene presides over the Just City, where her devotees from throughout history strive to raise a generation of philosopher-kings. When Sokrates of Athens arrives, as ever a thorn in the side of the establishment, the consequences are far-reaching and explosive. Perspectives alternate among the passionately intellectual Egyptian-born Simmea; the formerly Victorian Maia, one of the city’s first “masters”; and the reincarnated god Apollo, who’s on a quest to learn about “equal significance and volition.” Walton expertly observes the cracks between Platonic ideal and messy reality, but she relies heavily and uncomfortably on sexual violence and its aftermath as vehicles for exploring concepts of consent and free will. Her reductive depiction of the gods—particularly callous, unkind Athene, who’s set up as a straw man for Sokrates to knock down—and an unresolved, abrupt ending prevent this impressively ambitious novel from becoming its own best self. Agent: Jack Byrne, Sternig & Byrne Literary Agency. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 11/15/2014
A host of men and women who prayed to the goddess Athena are transported to the island of Kallisti (better known as Atlantis) to create a society based on the writings of Plato, specifically his concept of the Just City from The Republic. Intrigued by the experiment, Apollo, Athena's brother, agrees to participate, allowing himself to be reborn as a mortal to grow up in Athena's city. The older residents who prayed to be there serve as masters, mentors to the 10,000-plus children whom they steal out of time to populate the city, hoping those exposed early enough to Plato's ideal society will grow up to become philosopher kings. The reality is more complicated, as utopian ideals rarely play out as expected on actual human beings. VERDICT As skilled in execution as it is fascinating in premise, Walton's new work (after 2013's My Real Children) doesn't require a degree in classics, although readers might well be inspired to read Plato after seeing the rocky destruction of his dream. Although rich with philosophical discussions, what keeps this novel from becoming too chilly or analytical are its sympathetic female characters.

Library Journal

11/01/2015
The Goddess Athene has an idea that seems foolproof: What if she could create a real-life version of Plato's Republic by bringing together all of those throughout history who have ever prayed to her and have them build and govern the Just City? Her brother Apollo is not so certain of the possible outcome but is intrigued enough by the idea—and worried enough by a recent romantic rejection by a human—to turn himself into a human and take part in the experiment. And so Walton's novel follows the creation of this city, as told by three narrators at three different levels of the society: an Egyptian slave bought by the Republic to be one of the children who will be taught and trained to become a philosopher king; a young woman from Victorian England who will be one of the first set of teachers of the young children; and Apollo himself, in his guise as one of the children. From these three perspectives, readers see the various successes and failures of the Republic and the eventual crisis that comes from the central question of what it means to be truly just. No knowledge of Plato's Republic is necessary to follow this powerful work, and teens who enjoy dystopian novels should be particularly interested in Walton's account of how a dystopia forms: by beginning as a utopia. VERDICT A fast-moving yet thought-provoking novel.—Mark Flowers, Rio Vista Library, CA

School Library Journal

2014-09-16
What happens when the goddess Athene tries to establish Plato's Republic on Atlantis, populated with a few hundred philosophers plucked from 2,500 years of history, more than 10,000 manumitted slave children and a handful of robot workers? For some reason, Plato is not invited, but Socrates is welcome, as are a number of Plato's translators and devotees, including Plotinus and Cicero. The adults, known as "masters," are generally happy to build the Just City, but not all the children are, especially since it's strongly implied that the masters encouraged the growth of slavery in various eras by purchasing so many children. And although the children are well-treated and educated, they're not allowed to leave and must follow strict rules whose provenance they can't entirely understand, since they're not even allowed to read The Republic. The justness of the City becomes even more questionable when evidence accumulates that the mechanical workers used in place of slaves may actually be sentient. There's more thought experiment than plot here. The fictional and mythological protagonists have a certain appeal, but it's disappointing that Walton (Among Others, 2011, etc.) barely sketches most of the historical characters who play minor roles in the story—readers will have to do the research themselves in order to flesh them out. This is novel as study guide: Mary Renault meets undergraduate Philosophy 101.

Kirkus Reviews