Incarceron

     This six weeks I read Incarceron by Catherine Fisher. Copyrighted in 2007, this is a science fiction story that is based off of a futuristic prison. The story is mostly about two main characters. One of them is a boy named Finn who lives inside of Incarceron, the prison that is alive. He claims to have come from the Outside, and has visions of what he believes to be the past every once in a while. The other main character is Claudia. Claudia is a girl who lives in the Outside, where the era has been reduced to the 18th century and technological progress is forbidden. The two each find a key which allows them to communicate with each other, and together they try and release Finn from the mysterious prison in order to prevent Claudia's arranged marriage.

     The story is told in a third person point of view, switching from revolving around Finn to Claudia, and at one point even gets to Jared, Claudia's tutor. In the book, Finn obtains a crystal key in his dreams, and Claudia obtains an identical key after sneaking into her father's study. The two use the keys to speak to speak to each other, and Claudia attempts to help Finn escape. Finn attempts to find the portal out of the prison with his oath-brother Keiro, Gildas the Sapienti, and Attia, a girl who was rescued by Finn in his attempt to escape the Comitatus. Claudia, on the other hand, is doomed to an arranged marriage, and is trying to let Finn escape since she thinks he is Giles, the young prince who died many years ago. Claudia is aided by Jared, her Sapienti tutor, and together they try to sneak around her father, who is the warden of Incarceron, in order to find clues to help Finn escape. In the end, Claudia's father finds out about the attempted escape and decides to help them out in the process. The intended audience is probably people around 13 to 15 years old, due to all the violence and deaths and such. The book is a science fiction book, and this is mainly because although regulations disallow modern technology, there are quite a few science fiction parts to the book, such as Jormanric's rings that allow him to live multiple lives and the prison itself, which contains thousands of lives, is really a small silver cube on the warden's chain. The book keeps you interested by having a lot of conflicts for the main characters, and a new one appears almost instantly after one is solved, so you'll want to know what happens next. Fisher's style is one that goes into detail and helps put things into your head without making the book too long.

     The book did not really affect me that much. The book barely relates to pretty much anyone in today's modern world, because even though it's the future regulations keep things in the 18th century. It does make you think a little more about pain and suffering. People may think that their lives suck, but in this book it's a lot worse. Claudia finds out that the Warden isn't actually her father, but she was adopted from the prison. Evian, one of the characters in the story, ends up killing himself after failing to murder the queen. Finn thinks that he used to be Giles, the prince, and got put into Incarceron because the queen was blackmailing the Warden. This book doesn't really remind me of anything else, it is unlike any book I have ever read.

     The idea of a living prison and escape may sound a little odd or maybe even overused to you, but the way Catherine Fisher puts it makes it one of the best books I have ever read. The way the book keeps one conflict going after another made it difficult to put the book down. Overall, this is a great book and I would recommend this to almost anyone, friend or foe.

Bill Dang
12/17/13
RATING: ***** 5/5 Stars