Title: The Just City (Thessaly #1)
Author: Jo Walton
Publisher: Tor Books (Macmillan)
Release Date: January 13, 2015
Acquired Via: Publisher
"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—all set down together on a Mediterranean island in the distant past.
The student Simmea, born an Egyptian farmer's daughter sometime between 500 and 1000 A.D, is a brilliant child, eager for knowledge, ready to strive to be her best self. The teacher Maia was once Ethel, a young Victorian lady of much learning and few prospects, who prayed to Pallas Athene in an unguarded moment during a trip to Rome—and, in an instant, found herself in the Just City with grey-eyed Athene standing unmistakably before her.
Meanwhile, Apollo—stunned by the realization that there are things mortals understand better than he does—has arranged to live a human life, and has come to the City as one of the children. He knows his true identity, and conceals it from his peers. For this lifetime, he is prone to all the troubles of being human.
Then, a few years in, Sokrates arrives—the same Sokrates recorded by Plato himself—to ask all the troublesome questions you would expect. What happens next is a tale only the brilliant Jo Walton could tell.
My Review
The Just City is a fairly amazing book that I really don't know how to describe, sadly. I was drawn to the book because of all of the wonderful things I have heard about Jo Walton (I hate that I missed her panels at ALA in June) and my love of Greek mythology. What I found was a novel that made me want to be smarter to appreciate it more, and I also wish that I had read it ten years ago in college, when my brain was at its peak.