The Just City by Jo Walton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
THE JUST CITY is a thought experiment actually carried through. I must admit my classical education is woefully inadequate–I’ve never read Plato and I’ve barely read Homer–but I still enjoyed this story, and I’m curious to see how it continues. With a little divine intervention (and some of that is quite hands-on), bring together the greatest (known and unknown) thinkers in history and future and have them create a civilization, according to the rules Plato thought would bring about the best world. Some of his ideas are hideous to modern folks–think forced pregnancies and exposing disabled infants–but perhaps some of them really do help a group of people come together.
This book explores many areas of population science, interweaving social dynamics with artificial intelligence, examining the psychology of growing up and becoming upstanding members of one’s community. It messed with my head, but it was fun to read about Apollo’s befuddlement at human behavior even as he tries to imitate it. Author Jo Walton does a good job at showing how the gods might think while keeping the writing accessible to us mortals. And her female characters are well drawn, espousing all the arguments those of us outside the Just City are still debating. And Sokrates (yes, Socrates) is a hoot, no matter if he’s debating robots or trying to make his students think outside their rigid boxes.
It’s hard to pin down a genre for this book; time-travel for obvious reasons; fantasy because of the gods; straight up literature because of the philosophical questions posed throughout; social commentary because in every community, there are those that have and those that have not, and even in a perfect society there are those who rebel against the norm. If you want to be challenged by your fantasy, give this a shot. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series.