Incarceron
by
Catherine Fisher
YA/Adult fantasy/science fiction
Times (of London) Children's Book of the Year
This is a full length novel (442 pages) with adult themes (court life, marriage, criminology), so I am surprised to see that it won a children's book award. I suppose it could be enjoyed by 15-18 year olds as well as adults, but if I had not seen that it was in our library's YA section (with the unicorn sticker indicating fantasy) and that it had won a children's book award I would have assumed that the target audience was adults. There is some violence and gore in the book, but it is not overdone or gratuitous. It makes sense in describing the physical conditions under which people are living.
The premise is that society has had enough of the criminal element and the negative influence of technology. It is decreed that people will return to a less complicated, more primitive existence. They re-created a medieval/renaissance world (although everyone knows that people cheat all the time with hidden technology). They banish their criminals to a new land - Incarceron. But the criminals are to be treated kindly and given food and education in a utopian setting. Something goes wrong, however, and the computer program set up to run Incarceron instead punishes the inhabitants of its world and resources become more and more scarce.
The story is told through the eyes of the prison Warden's daughter who is soon to marry the Prince of the outside world. What will she find out about Incarceron and what can she do about it?
