The Just City, by Jo Walton

Plato's Republic famously imagined a just city, but Plato himself could not have conceived how to pull of manifesting the just city the way Athena did in Jo Walton's novel The Just City.  Being a goddess does have its perks.  As an experiment, Athena brings together philosophers from around the world and from many different eras to be the masters of the just city.  They plan and build (which the help of "workers," multi-tasking robots from some future era), then travel through time again to buy 10-year-old children at slave markets--10,000 of them--to populate the just city and train to be philosopher kings.

In some ways, Athena's plans begin to work out beautifully.  The children are encouraged to forget their former lives.  Many do so gladly, but some retain a sense of having been snatched unjustly from their families.  They train in art and music and physical fitness, striving to become their "best selves."  Five years or so into the experiment, Athena brings in a special teacher to instruct the children in rhetoric--Sokrates himself!  He, of course, questions everything, teaching the children to do so as well.

When the children come of age, the masters begin to implement Plato's plan for building the next generation.  Marriages are arranged by lot, lasting for one night only for the purpose of procreation, and long-term coupling is expressly discouraged.  Quickly all involved become dissatisfied with this arrangement, for reasons obvious to everyone except Plato and his followers.

Walton keeps The Just City interesting by exploring ideas of free will and self-governance in this setting. If the children were rescued from slavery, but clearly have no choice about their future, are they truly liberated?  When the robots who do the labor in the city being to express self-awareness, how does their emerging consciousness fit in with the concepts of the soul and free will?  I also found her reflections on love--philia, agape, and eros--insightful.

At times, especially early on, I was reminded of some recent YA fiction: the Percy Jackson series, with all the references to the Greek gods and the young people living and training together; the Divergent series, with the ordered, segmented society and the selection of defined roles.  But I realize that this probably has less to do with Walton's reading recent fiction than with Plato's influence reaching throughout history.  Perhaps every utopian work of fiction reaches back to The Republic, directly or indirectly.

Even if it's been years since you've read Plato, The Just City can be read and enjoyed without a good working knowledge of the Greek philosopher.  Walton fleshes out the ideas of The Republic in engaging ways, but I thought she missed some opportunities to tell a great story.  The first half of the book was background and buildup to what I thought would be some interesting conflict.  She laid plenty of hints of a stirring up of rebellion and potential ascendence of the machines, but those story lines didn't go much of anywhere beyond talk.  The good news is, the talk is what makes The Just City compelling.  What else do you expect on an island of philosophers and future philosopher kings?


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!