[TAYSHAS pick]
Firstly, let me say that I was a bit sad when this book ended—luckily, it was right around the time when Sapphique, the sequel, was released, so I ordered the sequel even though I was not entirely satisfied with some elements of Incarceron.
Incarceron involves two plots woven together—that of Finn, a prisoner of Incarceron, and Claudia, the daughter of the Warden of Incarceron who lives outside the prison. Much of the novel vacillates between the two storylines. Incarceron is a prison created to entirely sustain itself; it seems to be endless and when people die in Incarceron, they are recycled. Factions, families, and entire cities are built in Incarceron; the “outside” placed the riffraff of society there generations ago and left them to rot, essentially.
Finn “wakes up” at a certain time and is suddenly in the prison. While he becomes assimilated in the prison, he does not remember a childhood in the prison; in fact, he gets flashes and episodes in which memories of an outside world come to him. Thusly, he believes there is an outside, and that is where he belongs. He and some of his friends find a crystal key that they believe will aid them in reaching the outside, and there begins their arduous journey.
The key, incidentally enough, is magical, and allows the prisoners to communicate with whomever holds the original copy on the Outside. The person holding that key is Claudia, the daughter of the Warden. She is contracted to marry a man she does not love, and she is desperate to find a way out of the marriage. Claudia becomes the target of many intrigues and plots, but once she finds out about Finn and his plight, she becomes anxious to help him escape the prison. But where is Incarceron? The location is and always has been a well-kept secret.
Incarceron is indeed a well-paced and engrossing novel; while I ignored the gaping holes in the logic of physics exercised towards the end (when we learn where Incarceron is located), I still enjoyed the novel. Finn is just heroic enough and just human enough; Claudia, a strong, maybe too strong, female character.
Incarceron involves two plots woven together—that of Finn, a prisoner of Incarceron, and Claudia, the daughter of the Warden of Incarceron who lives outside the prison. Much of the novel vacillates between the two storylines. Incarceron is a prison created to entirely sustain itself; it seems to be endless and when people die in Incarceron, they are recycled. Factions, families, and entire cities are built in Incarceron; the “outside” placed the riffraff of society there generations ago and left them to rot, essentially.
Finn “wakes up” at a certain time and is suddenly in the prison. While he becomes assimilated in the prison, he does not remember a childhood in the prison; in fact, he gets flashes and episodes in which memories of an outside world come to him. Thusly, he believes there is an outside, and that is where he belongs. He and some of his friends find a crystal key that they believe will aid them in reaching the outside, and there begins their arduous journey.
The key, incidentally enough, is magical, and allows the prisoners to communicate with whomever holds the original copy on the Outside. The person holding that key is Claudia, the daughter of the Warden. She is contracted to marry a man she does not love, and she is desperate to find a way out of the marriage. Claudia becomes the target of many intrigues and plots, but once she finds out about Finn and his plight, she becomes anxious to help him escape the prison. But where is Incarceron? The location is and always has been a well-kept secret.
Incarceron is indeed a well-paced and engrossing novel; while I ignored the gaping holes in the logic of physics exercised towards the end (when we learn where Incarceron is located), I still enjoyed the novel. Finn is just heroic enough and just human enough; Claudia, a strong, maybe too strong, female character.
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