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The Just City

(Thessaly #1)

Jo Walton (Goodreads Author)

3.78 · Rating details · 5,876 ratings · 1,075 reviews

"Here in the Just City you will become your best selves. You will learn and grow and strive to be excellent."

Created as an experiment by the time-traveling goddess Pallas Athene, the Just City is a planned community, populated by over ten thousand children and a few hundred adult teachers from all eras of history, along with some handy robots from the far human future--al ...more

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Hardcover, 368 pages

Published January 13th 2015 by Tor Books

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May 15, 2015 Jessica ❁ ➳ Silverbow ➳ ❁ rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, time-travel, jerk-of-my-dreams, dystopian, mythology, science-fiction, rabid-reads-reviews, book-outlet, that-bastard

Reviewed by: Rabid Reads

3.5 stars

THE JUST CITY by Jo Walton . . . is one of the strangest books I've read in long time.

The premise is fascinating: the Greek pantheon exists outside of time, meaning the gods can move through it fluidly. They can also snatch humans out of their various centuries and dump them in a time and place of their choosing.

Pallas Athene does exactly this, answering the prayers of intellectuals from as far in the future as the twentieth century and as far in the past as to b ...more

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Jun 18, 2019 Heidi The Reader rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, fantasy-and-sci-fi

When the god Apollo seeks to understand the workings of the mortal mind and heart, he asks his sister, Athene to help him. She reveals a project in which she has gathered together philosophers from across time and space and put them in a settlement called, "The Just City". In this city, set near a volcano that will one day explode and destroy all evidence of the project, a group of men, women and children will try to recreate the hypothetical state described in Plato's "Republic".

Apollo asks to When the god Apollo seeks to understand the workings of the mortal mind and heart, he asks his sister, Athene to help him. She reveals a project in which she has gathered together philosophers from across time and space and put them in a settlement called, "The Just City". In this city, set near a volcano that will one day explode and destroy all evidence of the project, a group of men, women and children will try to recreate the hypothetical state described in Plato's "Republic".

Apollo asks to join this group. And our story begins.

The city itself shone in the afternoon light. The pillars, the domes, the arches, all of it lay in the balance of light and shadow. Our souls know harmony and proportion before we are born, so although I had never seen anything like it, my soul resonated at once to the beauty of the city." pgs 35-36

But what is perfect in theory turns out to be not-so-perfect in practice. Among the thornier problems, the city has shared marriages and children raised by the group, not families. This causes predictable jealousies and secret romances. There's also something strange going on with the robotic workers Athene brought from a future time to help with the mundane tasks of civilization, like raking the roads and planting the vineyards.

"We are in a time before the fall of Troy. And we are on the doomed island of Kallisti, called by some Atlante." Even I had heard of Atlantis." pg 45

Another major issue, caused because they were pulled from different points in history, are the different philosophers' views on gender equality. Consent in the Renaissance doesn't mean the same thing as consent in the Victorian Age.

"You love this city," Pytheas said. That was what we had been debating that day. "I do," I said, spreading out my arms as if I could hug the entire city. "I love it. But Sokrates has made me see that it's only the visible manifestation and earthly approximation of what I really love, the city of the mind." pg 131

Though I enjoyed this book, the pace was what spoiled it for me somewhat. It marches forward towards an inevitable conclusion far too slowly. The debate scenes are interesting, but simply too plodding.

There's also a rape, so please be aware if you have potential triggers.

Recommended tentatively for readers who love the classics or historical fiction and can stand a slower-paced read. ...more

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Aug 19, 2018 Michael Finocchiaro rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, novels, fiction, american-21st-c, series, sci-fi

Another GR commenter suggested the Thessaly series and I was enthusiastic to give it a shot. The story is a fantasy about Athena and Apollo creating Plato’s Republic in pre-1600 BC Thira (currently the Greek Cycladic island Santorini). The concept was interesting, but I didn’t bond with many of the characters. There was a feminist bent to the story in its strong female characters, but a rather weak position on rape and, while condoning male-on-male sexuality, a complete absence of female-female ...more

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May 25, 2015 Terry rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, utopia-dystopia

2.5 – 3 stars

I’m not quite sure what it was about this book that didn’t quite gel for me, but while I appreciate the scope of what Walton attempted I wasn’t super impressed by the results. The basic premise is that Apollo and Athene decide to pick an out-of-the-way island in a backwater of the timestream and attempt to build Plato’s Republic in a way that is both free from outside obstructions and which will not unduly affect the course of history. To this end Athene cherry-picks thinkers and ph 2.5 – 3 stars

I’m not quite sure what it was about this book that didn’t quite gel for me, but while I appreciate the scope of what Walton attempted I wasn’t super impressed by the results. The basic premise is that Apollo and Athene decide to pick an out-of-the-way island in a backwater of the timestream and attempt to build Plato’s Republic in a way that is both free from outside obstructions and which will not unduly affect the course of history. To this end Athene cherry-picks thinkers and philosophers from throughout time who have apparently prayed to her asking to be able to make the Republic real in order to act as the ‘Masters’ of the Republic and the architects of its initial set-up. First nit-pick: I found it a bit strange that she was able to find so many people that fit this criteria, even well into and beyond the modern age. I can see there being thinkers desirous of putting Plato’s theories to the acid test, but that they all also specifically prayed to Athene about it stretched my suspension of disbelief a bit. Both Athene and Apollo then decide to incarnate themselves so they can get a human’s-eye-view of the proceedings though while Apollo takes the hard route of actually laying down his powers and taking up humanity, Athene cheats and simply morphs herself to appear human. In addition to the Masters, Athene also provides the first generation of 10-year-old children to act as the first ‘true’ generation of possible Philosopher-Kings by culling the slave markets of various eras for appropriate candidates.

The story is told via multiple viewpoints, some of them the Masters, others the Children (primarily Simmea a ‘true’ human slave culled from the ancient world and Pytheas, actually the incarnate form of Apollo) and revolves around two main axes: the problems encountered by the Masters in their attempts to make Plato’s Republic more than just a thought experiment & the moral and intellectual quandaries with which they must wrestle as a result; and the growing relationship between Simmea and Pytheas and the ways in which the latter attempts to gain unique insight from his human condition. I think one of my problems was that I didn’t find any of the characters particularly compelling: Simmea seemed to me to be a bit of a Mary Sue…she’s not perfect by any means, but I did get the distinct feeling that Walton identified more than a little bit with her and seemed to stack certain things in her favour; Athene and Apollo seem kind of dim considering they’re gods (more on that anon) and Kebes, who could have been an interesting character given his role of fly in the ointment of Utopia, was presented perhaps not quite as a villain, but certainly in about as unsympathetic a light as could be conceived without making him one. The most interesting character, unsurprisingly, was Sokrates. He is brought late in the game to the Republic by Athene for reasons I don’t fully understand and is perhaps the true fly in the ointment as he fulfills his role of ‘gadfly’ and asks questions that many of the Masters (and certainly Athene) would rather had been left unasked.

Speaking of Athene, neither she nor her brother Apollo come across as very bright, and while Walton makes a point of stressing that these gods are neither omnipotent nor omniscient they seemed a little stupider than I would have expected even a limited deity to be. The afore-mentioned shanghai-ing of Sokrates to the Republic is one obvious example. I mean did Athene really think that Sokrates wouldn’t stir the pot if he was brought to this Platonic Utopia, especially as it was apparently done against his will? What was she hoping to achieve? It was never really made clear to me. An even bigger issue was why would Athene and Apollo have even thought this project was a good idea at all? I must admit that I come to this from the point of view I came to hold after reading the Republic many years ago: namely that I don’t think Plato was in any way drawing a plan for what he really thought was the best of all possible states, but rather that he was ironically pointing out how fruitless the quest for Utopia was. His ‘perfect’ state was so far divorced from anything I thought human nature could achieve, or be comfortable with, that I find it hard to believe a god would have thought he was being serious…of course that’s more an issue with my interpretation of Plato than with any ‘facts’ of the case. Still, it made me wonder how the gods in question could have been surprised, or disappointed, when it all went wrong, as it of course inevitably does.

It was definitely an ambitious project to write a novel that tries to picture what would actually happen were Plato’s Republic to be attempted, but ultimately it didn’t really work for me. There were definitely plenty of thought-provoking issues raised so on that end kudos to Walton, but as a story I just didn’t find the narrative all that compelling.
...more

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Mar 17, 2018 Sarah rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy, sci-fi, favorites, sff-book-club-challenge

This is not my first 5 star review this year. But it is the one I am most excited about. The end of this book moved me to tears because it was so profound and so beautiful and at the end it sort of just smacks you in the face when you realize how very important and relevant it all is.

I picked up The Just City because GoodReads said: hey- you liked Too Like the Lightning, read this! Well- it both is and isn’t like Too Like the Lightning. There is a lot of philosophy involved but I don’t think the This is not my first 5 star review this year. But it is the one I am most excited about. The end of this book moved me to tears because it was so profound and so beautiful and at the end it sort of just smacks you in the face when you realize how very important and relevant it all is.

I picked up The Just City because GoodReads said: hey- you liked Too Like the Lightning, read this! Well- it both is and isn’t like Too Like the Lightning. There is a lot of philosophy involved but I don’t think the plot was even remotely as complex and the philosophy is sort of fed to you rather then engaging you. I don’t mean this as a fault in any way- I’m just saying, it’s different. (This might also have been a difference of reading solo vs reading as a group.)

It starts out sort of slow. By the halfway point I was thinking it was a solid 3 Star book. Then a 4 Star, and it took me all the way to the end to be able to say it’s a 5 Star read. It’s dense. Be patient with it. It’s worth sticking it out.

The premise is this (chapter one spoilers ahead): Apollo is chasing the nymph Daphne and then rather than be raped she prays to Artemis and asks to be turned into a tree. Apollo just can’t believe that anyone would rather be a tree than mate with him so he decides to become a human to find out why. His sister Athene says, well I’m working on a thought experiment, recreating Plato’s Republic. You could go be a human there and figure out why Daphne turned into a tree. So he agrees and the stage is set.

This is largely a character driven novel. All the characters brought something different to the table. Apollo had the knowledge of a god but didn’t understand human struggle. Simmea is a black child from Northern Africa (I know her grandmother is from Libya but the way she phrased it made it seem like she was not) coming to The Just City while she is too young to question the inequalities of the world. Maia is a woman from 19th century England, a world which does not value women who think. And then we have dear Sokrates, who never gets a POV chapter but was always delightful to read.

(I’m going to try and avoid spoilers here but for those of you that don’t want them, I don’t know if I can say what I want to say without revealing some aspects of the book/plot/etc. so read with caution.)

I adored all these characters and their unique perspectives. I enjoyed reading their dialogues with Socrates and felt Walton did an excellent job of giving them dialogue that would have come from people with their backgrounds. The workers (robots Athene brought from the future) were an excellent literary device to propose the questions Walton wanted us to be asking and truly proved for some thought-provoking reading. What is personhood? Who qualifies? How do you make everyone equal in practice?

Though I suppose the Just City (the city in the book not the book) succeeds in many aspects, it fails in many others. The practice of labeling people: iron, bronze, silver or gold for example is extremely indicative of inequality. Golds pursue art and philosophy and mathematics all day while Irons do all the work. So we have a system that is just based on ability I suppose but by making the city just we have also made it a city of inequalities. Do justice and equality contradict each other? Is it fair to divide people, not on the basis of skin color or sex or sexuality, but on systems of ability? Does the man who is poor at math deserve to be relegated to field work all day? Do the women who don’t succeed at art deserve the job of raising children all day? Is this what they want to do? And how do you reconcile a desire for personal happiness with justice and equality? (This speaks more to the aspects of the novel which touch on eugenics and divisions of labor.)

The more I think about it the deeper it all goes. I would like to add that as an added bonus, Jo Walton thanks Ada Palmer in the Acknowledgements section in regards to help she gave with Plato and philosophy so of course I was giddy with excitement to read that section.

I loved this book. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a read with more substance than action. I’m now off to go see if my library has Thessaly #2 available for download. ...more

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May 23, 2015 Sherwood Smith added it

Shelves: fantasy

I needed a second reading to begin to articulate why I love this book so much. Walton does something different with every story arc, sometimes writing stand-alone novels (Lifelode, Tooth and Claw, Among Others) and sometimes series (Farthing series and her Arthurian-in-another-world series). The Just City is the beginning of a series, coming to an abrupt stopping place after a climactic debate.

One thing I appreciated on this second reading was the book's structure. I seldom notice such things as I needed a second reading to begin to articulate why I love this book so much. Walton does something different with every story arc, sometimes writing stand-alone novels (Lifelode, Tooth and Claw, Among Others) and sometimes series (Farthing series and her Arthurian-in-another-world series). The Just City is the beginning of a series, coming to an abrupt stopping place after a climactic debate.

One thing I appreciated on this second reading was the book's structure. I seldom notice such things as I am visually oriented and so my reading tends to immerse me inside the world as if watching a movie. I am aware of emotional arcs like comets across the canopy of stars; I retain a memory of the shooting stars instead of the panoply of constellations.

The book begins with Apollo after Daphne is turned into a tree in order to escape his embrace. He wants to know why Daphne would prefer giving up human life to avoid Apollo the shining one, the perfect one, who most people would be delighted to be with. He asks Artemis but she shuts him down, so then he goes to Athene, who in Walton's book is a fascinating combination of perfect warrior--cold and calculating--and dedicated knowledge geek. Probably ace as well. Apollo asks his question, and receives a reply that surprises him because he has never considered his female play partners' volition anymore than he has considered the idea of equal significance. So he thinks maybe he ought to become mortal to learn through experience.

And Athene offers him a chance to be mortal in her new experiment, the Just City.

When I first read this book, I was so caught up with the individual lives and voices of the human characters, who are either brought from across time to be masters, or the ten year old slave kids purchased in order to be brought to the Just City, and raised according to the ideals put forth in Plato's Republic. On this second reading, I found myself delighted by how Walton chose not to bring Plato in as a character. The other characters all read and debate his work endlessly--eventually including Socrates (spelled here Sokrates)--who incidentally absolutely loathes the idea of the city. His opinion of Plato crackles with personality and points of debate as he goes about being a teacher.

So many fascinating characters as the city is established and then the first nine years pass. The kids become teens, and they are organized according to Plato's ideals, the goal always being arete or excellence--one's best self--but underlying the smaller incidents are Apollo's original questions about volition and equal significance.

In this regard not only are the female characters important, but what happens to them, why, and who reacts how. My favorite character of all is Simmea, small and plain who is passionate about the city's ideal, while always wanting to test it. Close behind her are Apollo, here in the form of Pytheas, and Socrates. The debates are wonderful, the subthread about the robots who do all the scut work fascinating in how it parallels the question of the city, slavery, volition, and significance.

Small details such as Athene's Olympian emotional distance, and Socrates's delight in curiosity, Cicero's complexity, ditto Pico della Mirandola, and so on cause the book to shine with ideas, passion, love of art and knowledge. Apollo gets answers to his questions, but his quest is far from done. ...more

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Apr 09, 2020 Allison Hurd rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, fem-author, sff-bookshelf, sff-2020-challenge

Don't read this review if you're hoping to join the SFFBC group read without any impressions!

Jo Walton is brilliant, I think I can say that without much need to couch. The start of this book I was GIDDY with anticipation of where this was going. Unfortunately, she seems to have slightly more difficulty with endings of books, and so by the time I got there my enthusiasm had waned somewhat.

CONTENT WARNINGS (a list of topics): (view spoiler) ...more

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Jan 22, 2015 Tudor Ciocarlie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2015-my-best-of

How can a novel that has as a climax a dialog between Socrates and goddess Athena, be anything but utterly wonderful? I've rarely encountered such a rich, flavored, powerful food for thought. ...more

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Mar 20, 2015 Emily rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: antiquity, sci-fi-fantasy, fairy-tales-and-myths

This book tries to do too much and ends up doing nothing. On its surface, it’s complete catnip: time travelers set up the Just City as described by Plato in The Republic, aided by the goddess Athene. There are several POV characters, including the god Apollo in the guise of a teenager, one of the girls brought to grow up in the Just City, and one of the teachers who comes from Victorian England. The book begins with Athene founding the city (“Atlantis” har de har) and moves forward through the n This book tries to do too much and ends up doing nothing. On its surface, it’s complete catnip: time travelers set up the Just City as described by Plato in The Republic, aided by the goddess Athene. There are several POV characters, including the god Apollo in the guise of a teenager, one of the girls brought to grow up in the Just City, and one of the teachers who comes from Victorian England. The book begins with Athene founding the city (“Atlantis” har de har) and moves forward through the next ten years of its existence. Even with the rapid passage of time, it never succeeds in gaining a plot or a directed exploration of what “justice” means.

In fact, the city itself does just fine up until the very end of the book and a cliffhanger ending. There’s a lot of talk about how the Just City actually doesn’t make people happy, but that never bears real fruit:

Athene and I certainly didn’t imagine it would really work the way Plato described it. We knew too much about the soul to hope for that. What was interesting was seeing how much of it could work, how much it really would maximize justice, and how it was going to fail. We could learn a lot from that.

Instead, the book consists of several Socratic dialogues—some with Sokrates himself, who shows up to turn the whole experiment upside down—and conversations about “equal significance” and volition that are as subtle as a sledgehammer. The plot gets convoluted very quickly and ends up with a long section that discusses the sentience of robots (?), instead of focusing on the more interesting problem of actual human beings living in a society that puts excellence above everything else.

Oddly enough, the writing and the world in this book reminded me a lot of Diana Wynne Jones, but with more adult themes (if you can call the on-page rapes of several POV characters “adult themes”). The matter-of-fact narration and the setting reminded me of A Tale of Time City and The Merlin Conspiracy, both of which I would definitely recommend over The Just City. I also liked Apollo’s explanation of the gods and their place in time—that was very DWJ.

The aspect of this book that really resonated with me was the characters’ clear love of art. Jo Walton says she was inspired to write this book after seeing Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne, which is one of the most astonishing and beautiful works of art I’ve ever seen. Simmea loves to go to different dining halls to look at the Botticellis and the lost art of centuries past (Phidias’s Athena!). As with the wonderful Among Others, Jo Walton is excellent when evoking the particular magic that art or books can cast on the characters and on the reader.

Other than that, this book really goes nowhere. I’m more likely to read Plato than the sequel. ...more

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Nov 04, 2014 Althea Ann rated it liked it

An interesting book about an interesting project.

As an experiment investigating human nature, the goddess Athena decides to set up a 'Just City' based on Plato's 'Republic.'
To do this, she zaps every human being who ever prayed to her that they could live in Plato's 'Just City' (there are more than one might guess, from widely varied times and locations), and collects them all in ancient history, on the remote island that's sometimes been known as Atlantis. Their prayers are answered: with the g An interesting book about an interesting project.

As an experiment investigating human nature, the goddess Athena decides to set up a 'Just City' based on Plato's 'Republic.'
To do this, she zaps every human being who ever prayed to her that they could live in Plato's 'Just City' (there are more than one might guess, from widely varied times and locations), and collects them all in ancient history, on the remote island that's sometimes been known as Atlantis. Their prayers are answered: with the goddess' help, these people will get to create a city based on Plato's writings.

To do this, first, they need to collect citizens. Children purchased from slave markets will do the trick. Athena's brother Apollo, as well as Artemis, think the idea is interesting, so they get in on the action. And Athena likes Socrates, so he gets collected too, even against his will.

What transpires is less a novel, and more of Jo Walton's response to Plato. In many ways (and intentionally) reading this book is similar to reading Plato. Characters exist as mouthpieces for certain points of view, and they agreeably talk about just what the author wants them to. There's very little action, and quite a lot of exploration of various ideas.

Walton's main themes in the book concern free will and volition, the nature of intelligence (including the possibility and ramifications of artificial intelligence), the ethics of power and truth, human nature itself, and whether or not utopia is even possible.

The details of many of the issues brought up in the discussion of many of these issues are very contemporary in feel - more so than the characters' purported backgrounds would seem to indicate. I also got very little sense of many of the characters, except for the few main viewpoint ones, which was a bit of a shame, considering the premise of their widely diverse backgrounds. But again, this isn't a character study - it's a work linking current thinking on women's rights, consent issues, &c. with Plato's writings.

If an extended treatment of these ideas sounds interesting to you: you will love this book. If you expected a sci-fi or fantasy novel: you may be slightly disappointed. I felt that it was worth reading; but doubt that it will touch so many people emotionally the way 'Among Others' did.

Much appreciation to Tor Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

...more

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Apr 18, 2020 Hank rated it it was ok

Shelves: scifi-club-read

With apologies to Sarah and Gabi (and others) who loved the book, I really did not and will hide my review under a spoiler tag.

(view spoiler) ...more

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Mar 29, 2015 Jaylia3 rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2015, 2016-re-read

Time travel, robots, Greek gods, Atlantis, and Plato’s Republic. . .

The Just City opens with Apollo deeply perplexed. Why wouldn’t Daphne dally with him? He’s a god! Why would she rather be turned into a tree by Artemis? Athena tries to explain that humans care about making their own choices, but that doesn’t make sense to Apollo’s god-brain way of thinking and he really wants to understand, so when Athena suggests he temporarily take on mortal form and join her philosophical experiment to creat Time travel, robots, Greek gods, Atlantis, and Plato’s Republic. . .

The Just City opens with Apollo deeply perplexed. Why wouldn’t Daphne dally with him? He’s a god! Why would she rather be turned into a tree by Artemis? Athena tries to explain that humans care about making their own choices, but that doesn’t make sense to Apollo’s god-brain way of thinking and he really wants to understand, so when Athena suggests he temporarily take on mortal form and join her philosophical experiment to create the Just City described in Plato’s Republic, Apollo is all in.

It’s a huge project, but fortunately being outside temporal constraints herself Athena has the ability to time travel people and supplies around. After choosing the isolated, ancient island of Atlantis as the setting, Athena retrieves advanced robots from our distant future to act as laborers, brings in thousands of 10-year-olds purchased in bygone Mediterranean slave markets to be educated as per Plato, and whisks away hundreds of idealistic adults (some of them actual historical figures) from just about every human epoch to become instructors and administrators.

The story is told through first person narratives of three characters who, like everyone in the Just City, are working at becoming their ideal selves. Apollo has incarnated as an unnaturally gifted but socially clueless former slave boy seeking to understand the ways of humans. Helping him with that is Simmea, another of the city’s 10,000 children. She started out life sometime between 500 and 1000 AD on her family’s farm in North Africa, but after being captured and then sold into slavery Simmea relishes the unexpected, goddess given opportunity to cultivate her mind, strengthen her body, and create art. The third narrator, Maia was living in Victorian times deeply frustrated by the many restrictions placed on women when she prayed to Athena and was transported through time and space to Atlantis. Now she’s one of the adults teaching the Just City’s children and helping to make decisions about how to bring Plato’s vision to light.

There are problems to work out in the Just City--Plato has some awkward ideas about procreation for instance and sometimes instructors from vastly different historical eras have trouble coming to consensus--but everything is going along fairly smoothly. Then five years into the project Athena imports Socrates to teach the children philosophy, and true to form he starts stirring up trouble by questioning everything, from the Just City’s underlying principles to the treatment of the robots. Socrates quickly became one of my favorite characters--who else would try to turn robots into lovers of wisdom?

It sounds wacky and there is humor, but for me the story was completely gripping. The characters have strong but sometimes clashing emotional investments in Athena’s project and I was completely fascinated by all the machinations that went into their joint attempt to create Plato’s Just City.

I read Plato’s Republic in college, but that was decades ago and I don’t think having studied it is a prerequisite for enjoying this book if it sounds interesting to you. Most of what you need to know is in the story, and you can read a quick summary of The Republic on the internet if you want more. This is my first Jo Walton book, but I will definitely be reading others. She won Hugo and Nebula awards in 2012 for Among Others, so that may be next.
...more

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Jan 06, 2015 Lisa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy

Full Review can be found at TenaciousReader: http://www.tenaciousreader.com/2015/0...

A very thought provoking and insightful book that makes you question the way things are in the world, as well as how they could be (and if that “other way” would really be better or worse).

The Just City is an experiment carried out with by a Goddess. Her goal was to create perfectly balanced society where its citizens are judged solely on their own merits and abilities. There is to be no preferential treatment, Full Review can be found at TenaciousReader: http://www.tenaciousreader.com/2015/0...

A very thought provoking and insightful book that makes you question the way things are in the world, as well as how they could be (and if that “other way” would really be better or worse).

The Just City is an experiment carried out with by a Goddess. Her goal was to create perfectly balanced society where its citizens are judged solely on their own merits and abilities. There is to be no preferential treatment, people there should want to be their best selves and strive to do right by the city. If everyone lives by this code, then the city should thrive.

Since the masters had all prayed to Athena specifically to join this city, there was not an equal representation of people through out all of time. And there was a greater percentage of men from periods of time where women held less status. And not much representation from the modern age, as Athena is not generally a goddess of choice any more. It is interesting to watch the women masters in this and how they handle being given such responsibility and being valued for their intellect and desire to learn, something rarely seen in their prior lives. But also having to deal with some of the male masters from a much older time period that were not quite as open to equality of the genders. This makes for an interesting dynamic.

Sokrates makes an appearance, though years after the children have been brought there. He is not quite a master, but is definitely not a child. But the questions and insights he brings to the City, while may seem almost silly at times, are absolutely critical.

The book also examines the nature of thinking beings and question what constitutes a person. There are issues of choice. And with a society of so much structure, you can’t help but notice there are some fundamental choices that are taken away. Can a society be “just” when it’s citizen’s lack the freedom to choose? Just a small sampling of the philosophical questions you can’t help but examine while reading.

This was my first book by Jo Walton, but it certainly won’t be my last. This was a very powerful and addictive book. Usually books that I have a hard time putting down are often faster paced, but while this was not “action-packed”, it was fully absorbing. Highly recommend. ...more

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Apr 26, 2020 Alex Bright rated it it was amazing

That final chapter -- I'm in awe. This entire story was beautifully written, with no clear-cut answers to what is definitely a thought experiment for us all. Walton presents to us the pros and cons of a society (loosely?) based on Plato's The Republic, but doesn't do the thinking for us. I can't wait to see the continuation, as I'm sure the formation of a truly just city (cities?) will only lie at the end of a great deal of conflict, both literal and philosophical, if at all.

(view spoiler) ...more

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Dec 01, 2014 Liz Janet rated it really liked it

Shelves: favourites

“There will always be some who see excellence and envy it instead of striving to emulate it.”

Thanks to Tor for sending me this advanced-reader-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Ever heard of Plato’s Republic? Did you find it ridiculous? Do you agree/disagree with his plans? Well this is definitely a book to be read if you answered any of this questions, however is not really necessary to have read The Republic before, Jo Walton will explain everything to you.

Athena is my favourite Greek G “There will always be some who see excellence and envy it instead of striving to emulate it.”

Thanks to Tor for sending me this advanced-reader-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Ever heard of Plato’s Republic? Did you find it ridiculous? Do you agree/disagree with his plans? Well this is definitely a book to be read if you answered any of this questions, however is not really necessary to have read The Republic before, Jo Walton will explain everything to you.

Athena is my favourite Greek Goddess, so imagine my amusement when I read she would create THE JUST CITY, built after the ideas of Plato, sort of as a social experiment. She takes children from slave markets, adults from various points in time, robots from the future, and even Apollo and herself as mortal; in order to populate this “perfect” society. A few years later, Socrates shows up and starts questioning everything, which just infuriates Athena. “You can’t trust everything that ass Plato wrote,” oh Socrates!

“Know Thyself. It’s good advice. Know yourself. You are worth knowing. Examine your life. The unexamined life is not worth living. Be aware that other people have equal significance. Give them the space to make their own choices, and let their choices count as you want them to let your choices count. Remember that excellence has no stopping point and keep on pursuing it. Make art that can last and that says something nobody else can say. Live the best life you can, and become the best self you can. You cannot know which of your actions is the lever that will move worlds. Not even Necessity knows all ends. Know yourself.”

This book also dealt with very influential/important themes, such as gender roles and discrimination, rape and victim blaming/shaming, misogyny, whether an utopia can exist, and probably more things I was not able to catch. It leads you to question choice, and how choices make the person, and in that, how can a society survive if the choices have already been picked, rather than done.

The story is told from the perspective of various characters. We have Simmea and Maia, one a child and the other a young Victorian woman, both are consumed with the idea of the city, even after something quite tragic occurs, they do not question much a while afterwards. Pythias (Apollo) was great as well, I could only imagine what he was going to do or say, he lack the knowledge of people through the eyes of people, but was well versed in how gods see the mortals, and it was refreshing to see how he adapts his thinking. And Kebes, who many might have hated, yet the points he brought to the story were very important, he was the “choice” guy that does not go with the flow of the other students.

Perhaps one of the greatest things in this novel was the representations of the Greek gods and goddesses. It did justice to the gods of ancient times, it did not romanticize them, it made them true to some of the most well known myths. I think this was most demonstrated in the debate between Socrates and Pallas Athene, as we see what a god might do when cornered, even the goddess of knowledge.

“Nothing mortal can last. At best it can leave legends that can bear fruit in later ages.” This is a quote from this, and I see this book as a mortal that will become a legend, as it bears fruits to her other books in this series.
...more

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Apr 07, 2020 Dawn C rated it liked it

Shelves: media-audible, group-shelf, fairytale-mythology, 7th-read-all-the-books-challenge

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 22, 2016 Kerry rated it really liked it

Shelves: fromthelibrary, female-author, timetravel

Oh man, so good. I could just read Jo Walton and Ursula K. LeGuin forever and ever. Who needs anybody else.

I think a big part of the reason that I like Jo Walton so much is that she and I have similar (seemingly disparate) interests. So she writes stuff that I would write about, maybe, if I were a writer. Or that I like to read about, anyway. Victorian novels! Dragons! Ancient Greece! Time travel! Robots! Alternate timelines! Moon bases! Fairies! Reading other science fiction books! YES PLEASE. ...more

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Jan 09, 2015 Wanda rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy, speculative-fiction, read-in-2015, female-authors, public-library

My second book this year in which the Greek gods play main roles as characters (the first being Kraken Bake by Karen Dudley).

Unfortunately, for me, I preferred the playful Kraken Bake to The Just City. Now I’ll confess at this point that I probably have read some Plato during my university education, but I don’t remember it at all. It made no impression on me. So I am not the target audience for this novel.

I do like the idea that the god Apollo decides to become human in order to learn things t ...more

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Aug 02, 2014 Jessica rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, review-copy, advance-review-copy-digital, genre-intro, owned, fantasy

SO FUCKING GOOD.

That being said, I really can't wait for this to come out so I can see what other people think of it. The basic idea is that what if, throughout thousands of years, some of the people who read Plato's Republic prayed to Athena to live there, and what if that wish was granted? How does the idea of the perfect Just City actually work with imperfect people? The story is told by a freed slave, a bluestocking from the 1800s, and Apollo. The combination of earnest dedication to debate ...more

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Apr 03, 2015 Nicky rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy, philosophy, based-on-myth-saga-etc, greek-roman

Originally borrowed a review copy from Robert, then got approved for it on Netgalley, and then finally bought it, because I felt awful. It is not Jo Walton’s fault as a writer in any way; the book is fascinating, I just couldn’t sit still for it. I still don’t know why. I didn’t connect with it in the same way as I have some of Jo’s other books, but then I haven’t necessarily taken ages to read them because of that. There’s even stuff I love here: tons of classical references, as fun to spot as Originally borrowed a review copy from Robert, then got approved for it on Netgalley, and then finally bought it, because I felt awful. It is not Jo Walton’s fault as a writer in any way; the book is fascinating, I just couldn’t sit still for it. I still don’t know why. I didn’t connect with it in the same way as I have some of Jo’s other books, but then I haven’t necessarily taken ages to read them because of that. There’s even stuff I love here: tons of classical references, as fun to spot as the books in Among Others; the awe and admiration of art; the role of the female characters and the ways they contribute to the city; loves that are not of the body but of the mind, and an understanding of different kinds of love…

The plot itself extends the thought experiment of Plato’s Republic. He came up with this thought experiment, and now the characters of the book actually try to live it; the book explores the ways they compromise on that, and the new light that sheds on the original ideas. (And Jo’s exploration is itself a thought experiment, in a way… oh, the meta.) The whole thing is, in a way, another Socratic dialogue: every character asks questions of the others, and together they try to make the Just City. Compromising the ideals leads to compromised results, and I think it’s up to the reader to figure out to what extent that is justified, to what extent the experiment is successful, to what extent a more positive result would even be possible.

It’s pretty optimistic about the human race, really. The children raised in that environment think in a way which is much more ‘just’ than if they had been raised outside it, that’s clear. I’d love to think that’s possible, and I don’t know if it is. And is it because they have been raised in an environment lacking in poverty and most injustice (negative influences), or because of the education they receive and the order of their lives (positive influences)?

If you finish this without a ton more questions, I’d be surprised. And Socrates would be very, very displeased (and so, I think, would Jo Walton).

On a character-and-plot level, I love the evolution of Apollo/Pytheas. I love his relationship with Simmea, the way that they work on agape, and the ways they fall short of that with other people around them. I’ve always thought agape a beautiful idea, and the way it’s explored here is interesting — mostly with Simmea and Pytheas, but with many other characters too. The way that they love each other and want to increase each other’s excellence, and how solidly and unshakeably they both believe that is beautiful.

There’s so much else I could say about this book, and so much else I’d like to say and can’t word. Suffice it to summarise with: it’s an interesting book, one which raises a lot of questions, which still has characters you can love and cherish as well. I recommend it.

Originally posted here. ...more

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Jan 10, 2015 Kelly rated it really liked it

Shelves: fantasy-and-scifi, coming-soon-to-a-blog-near-you, 21st-century, fiction

And here it is, the review has now appeared on a blog of some nature. On the B&N one to be exact: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sc... ...more

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Aug 01, 2020 Audrey rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2020-books, kindle, historical-fantasy

I’m still not sure what genre to put this in. It has elements of sci fi and fantasy but feels more like historical fiction.

The Just City is an experiment started by the goddess Athena. She founds a city based on Plato’s Republic and brings in people from different time periods (who have all expressed interest in building such a city) and robots (who do the grunt work). Then they buy slave children to raise in the city.

This is sort of how I imagine the robots.

Maia is a “master” taken from the 180 ...more

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Sep 03, 2015 Kaitlin rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This is a book which took me far to long to get through considering the length of it but I will mention I had about 2 weeks where I didn't even try to read this. This was my first Walton book and it was one I decided to read as a buddy read which I think certainly made it more fun. The general premise of this is that we follow the gods Apollo and Athene as they decide to create a new city called the Just City, a concept which was originally theorised and proposed by Plato. The concept for the ci This is a book which took me far to long to get through considering the length of it but I will mention I had about 2 weeks where I didn't even try to read this. This was my first Walton book and it was one I decided to read as a buddy read which I think certainly made it more fun. The general premise of this is that we follow the gods Apollo and Athene as they decide to create a new city called the Just City, a concept which was originally theorised and proposed by Plato. The concept for the city experiment was to follow the rules of Plato's writings as closely as possible and to see what happened but because the Gods didn't want to 'mess up' the balance of the world they decided to create their experiment on the Island which would later become the lost city of Atlantis.

In the book we follow three character, Apollo decides he wants to become a human for the duration of the experiment and see what it is like to feel and think as a human does and so we see him as he's disguised.
We also follow a Master of the Island called Maia and to be a Master simply means she's a woman who prayed to Athene for a better world and she was taken out of her 19th century life and put on the Island to help create and nurture the Just City.
Finally we have a young 11 yr old called Simmea who was a slave before she too is taken from her time and added to the Island experiment.

I think the biggest issue I had with this is that there are various scenes which felt entirely too contrived for my liking and although some of the concepts discussed and theorised were very interesting, they did feel a little dumbed-down and simple in places. I couldn't really say I liked any of the characters per se as they were nearly all flawed or following a flawed system, and so 'enjoying' the story wasn't really an option. For me, this book felt like an experimental piece as much as the experiment it was trying to show. I appreciated the way Walton went about trying to illustrate the problems, but I also felt it was a little over the top at points and some subtlety could have gone a long way.

One concept Walton discussed which I did enjoy was the idea of sentience and for me this is certainly something I find really interesting so hearing discussion about this was really interesting. I do think this could have been fleshed out and become more integral to the plot earlier on and it might have made the book an easier read from the start because the themes would have kept me hooked, but that's not to say it's a difficult book, just not as interesting or likeable as I had hoped.

On the whole I though it was an okay read with some good and some bad elements and I do want to try out some of Jo Walton's other works in the future as I hear better things about them. I gave this a 2.5*s overall. ...more

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Apr 25, 2020 Mareike rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

What a brilliantly layered, masterfully executed, and at times devastating novel. This has definitely moved Jo Walton onto the list of my favorite sff authors.

I wavered a bit between 4 and 5 stars for this one, but ultimately came down on 5.

(view spoiler) What a brilliantly layered, masterfully executed, and at times devastating novel. This has definitely moved Jo Walton onto the list of my favorite sff authors.

I wavered a bit between 4 and 5 stars for this one, but ultimately came down on 5.

(view spoiler)

I was not sure about this book beforehand, having not heard about it before, and mostly picked it up because it was a group read in the SFFBC and because I enjoyed Tooth and Claw, my first Walton. But I am very glad I read it. And I will read the sequels. ...more

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Aug 24, 2016 Hilary rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, mythology-folklore, philosophy

4.5 stars

It's been quite a while since I read a book that drew me back to its source, and it's definitely been a while since I read The Republic. And this was no run-of-the-mill integration either - an imaginative creation of an experimental city.

To learn more about people, Athene creates a version of Plato's ideal city, The Republic, and populates it with 10-year old children taught by volunteers drawn from varied continents all over time. We get to see the city's creation, how practicalities s ...more

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Sep 02, 2014 First Second Books added it · review of another edition

Shelves: gina

So . . . what if the goddess Athena abducted everyone who wished that they lived in Plato’s Republic and got them to actually build it on Atlantis? Would it actually be awesome?

(Whether or not the city is awesome, the book is awesome.)

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Oct 16, 2016 YouKneeK rated it it was amazing

Shelves: completed-series, fantasy

I don’t know if I’m going to be able to explain why I liked this book so much. I recently picked it up for free as part of Tor.com’s eBook of the Month Club. I believe they offered it in September. I only read the first couple sentences of the synopsis, and it didn’t sound particularly appealing to me, but I thought I’d give it a try anyway. I vaguely remember liking Jo Walton’s book Farthing reasonably well when I read it several years ago.

The general story in The Just City is that various peop I don’t know if I’m going to be able to explain why I liked this book so much. I recently picked it up for free as part of Tor.com’s eBook of the Month Club. I believe they offered it in September. I only read the first couple sentences of the synopsis, and it didn’t sound particularly appealing to me, but I thought I’d give it a try anyway. I vaguely remember liking Jo Walton’s book Farthing reasonably well when I read it several years ago.

The general story in The Just City is that various people across time each prayed to the goddess Athene for a place like the city described in Plato’s The Republic. Athene decided to answer their prayers and whisked them all together at a specific time on a remote island where she helps them build a city based on Plato’s principles. The people involved range from ancient philosophers to intelligent women from more recent times who were frustrated by their lack of choices in life. After being built, the city is populated with over 10,000 children around the age of ten. Athene’s brother Apollo also plays a major role in the story. The story opens up with Apollo experiencing a human concept that baffles him. After seeking advice, he decides to live a mortal life in order to improve his understanding, and chooses to be born as a child who will eventually be brought to this Just City to live. There’s another plot line introduced a bit later into the book, but I think it’s better left as a surprise for other first-time readers.

So, as you can probably guess, there’s a lot of ancient Greek mythology and philosophy in this book. I’m not a mythology buff, but this wasn’t one of those books where the author tries to find a way to mention every god ever heard of. Only Apollo and Athene played major roles in the story, and a few others were mentioned sparingly. Likewise, the philosophy was presented in an accessible way. I took an introductory philosophy course in university, and it was actually one of my favorite non-degree-related courses, but we barely scratched the surface of the subject and it certainly wasn’t something I wanted to make a career out of. Some of the things mentioned in this book were vaguely familiar, but most of it was new to me. However, I was never confused and there were never any info dumps. The author conveyed the necessary information in such an entertaining way that I was barely aware she was doing it.

This is a very character-driven story, focusing on three main characters. One of the characters is Apollo. Another is Maia, one of the people who prays to Athene and is brought to help build the city. The third character is Simmea, one of the children brought to the city. I really enjoyed all the characters, especially Apollo. Each chapter is told from the first-person perspective of one of the characters. Even though the chapters were clearly labeled with the character’s name, I did have difficulty sometimes because two of the main characters were often together in both of their sets of chapters. Sometimes I forgot whose perspective I was reading from, especially if I took a break from reading in the middle of the chapter. It never took long before something rang false with the perspective I thought I was in and I’d get straightened back out, but it was a little jarring sometimes.

Plot-wise, there really isn’t a lot of action in this story. It’s quite heavy on dialogue, and has some serious discussions about things like consent, self-determination, self-awareness, trust, and truth. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people found the book quite boring, but for some reason this wasn’t the case for me. I was interested from the beginning, and I only occasionally began to feel a little restless as I neared the end. There were a few things I found questionable in terms of characters having more knowledge than I thought seemed likely and there were some things that felt a bit too convenient. Still, it isn’t too often that I inhale a book within a day and a half, so clearly I enjoyed it.

This is not a stand-alone story. It’s the first book in a trilogy, and nothing is really wrapped up at the end. The ending was fairly dramatic, actually, and I suspect there may be quite a bit more action in the second book. I plan to find out very soon. :) ...more

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Apr 18, 2015 Wealhtheow rated it liked it

Shelves: pocmaincharacters, historical, fantasy

Athena and Apollo try to create Plato's Republic. They pull together philosophers and dreamers from all eras of history to set the city up, then people it with ten year old Greek slave children. The book follows two of these children, Simmea and Pythias (actually Apollo reincarnated as a mortal), as they grow and learn within the system Plato's intellectual descendants have hammered out.

The characters are wonderfully well crafted. Their minds are so perfectly described that it was only about two ...more

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Apr 27, 2020 Dixie rated it really liked it

Shelves: scifi-fantasy, books-i-own, dix10e-scifi-group-2020, habitica-tbr-challenge

Intriguing and thought-provoking. I am looking forward to reading the other two books in the trilogy.

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Dec 19, 2016 Siria rated it liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, british-fiction, fantasy, 21st-century

I really wanted to love this book, because I’ve read Jo Walton’s writing before (the Small Change trilogy) and really enjoyed it, and because the premise of The Just City is so intriguing. Curious as to whether the idea of the perfect city laid out in Plato’s Republic could ever be a reality, the goddess Athene gathers together ten thousand Greek-speaking children and several hundred teachers from across a span of more than two thousand years and places them on a Mediterranean island in the dist I really wanted to love this book, because I’ve read Jo Walton’s writing before (the Small Change trilogy) and really enjoyed it, and because the premise of The Just City is so intriguing. Curious as to whether the idea of the perfect city laid out in Plato’s Republic could ever be a reality, the goddess Athene gathers together ten thousand Greek-speaking children and several hundred teachers from across a span of more than two thousand years and places them on a Mediterranean island in the distant past. There the inhabitants—including Simmea, the brilliant daughter of peasants from Late Antique Egypt; Maia, the impoverished but brilliant vicar’s daughter from Victorian England; and a secretly incarnate god Apollo—live out Athene’s experiment. Things, as might be expected, do not go entirely smoothly.

Walton has a great knack for conjuring up interesting characters, but for all that The Just City addresses some very grown-up themes (more than one explicit rape scene; post-partum depression), at points it read to me like a Young Adult novel. For a novel in which Socrates is a main character and characters are living within a giant philosophical experiment, their conversations rarely get into the issues in any depth—should I feel, within a few minutes of starting the novel, that I have already anticipated all of the problems, conflicts, and conclusions which it will take some of the greatest philosophical minds in history over a decade, and a couple of hundred pages of text to reach? I also felt that Walton’s decision to have all of the POV characters be from before the late nineteenth century (or, well, an immortal being) was a cop-out that let her avoid certain uncomfortable discussions (really, not one person born after the coining of the term "genocide" raises any qualms about the practice of eugenics? not one feminist raises hell?). Calling it shallow might be unfair to The Just City, but there was a more complex novel that could have emerged from the ingredients on display here.

(Also, as a medievalist, I cannot tell you how hard I rolled my eyes at the dig at Byzantium for doing nothing more than "preserving" Classical culture and not contributing anything new to the world, and at the constant praise of the Italian Renaissance. It's amazing what good PR can do for your historical reputation.) ...more

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SciFi and Fantasy...: "The Just City" Discuss Everything Spoilers	66	70	Mar 02, 2021 11:14AM
Dragons & Jetpacks: The Just City \| Mod Special July/August 2020	7	30	Aug 24, 2020 08:45AM
SciFi and Fantasy...: "The Just City" First Impressions No Spoilers	27	97	Apr 26, 2020 12:21PM
21st Century Lite...: The Just City - Background Thread, No Spoilers (April 2017)	8	43	Apr 27, 2017 02:04PM
21st Century Lite...: The Just City - Chapters 31 to The End (April 2017)	7	21	Apr 23, 2017 02:32PM
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About Jo Walton

Jo Walton

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Jo Walton writes science fiction and fantasy novels and reads a lot and eats great food. It worries her slightly that this is so exactly what she always wanted to do when she grew up. She comes from Wales, but lives in Montreal.

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Quotes from The Just City

“Know Thyself. It’s good advice. Know yourself. You are worth knowing. Examine your life. The unexamined life is not worth living. Be aware that other people have equal significance. Give them the space to make their own choices, and let their choices count as you want them to let your choices count. Remember that excellence has no stopping point and keep on pursuing it. Make art that can last and that says something nobody else can say. Live the best life you can, and become the best self you can. You cannot know which of your actions is the lever that will move worlds. Not even Necessity knows all ends. Know yourself.” — 31 likes

“There isn't an end point to excellence where you have it and you can stop. Being your best self means keeping on trying.” — 9 likes

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