Call number
Series
Genres
Publication
New York : Tor, 2016.
Pages
334
Description
"More than sixty-five years ago, Pallas Athena founded the Just City on an island in the eastern Mediterranean, placing it centuries before the Trojan War, populating it with teachers and children from throughout human history, and committing it to building a society based on the principles of Plato's Republic. Among the City's children was Pytheas, secretly the god Apollo in human form. Sixty years ago, the Just City schismed into five cities, each devoted to a different version of the original vision. Forty years ago, the five cities managed to bring their squabbles to a close. But in consequence of their struggle, their existence finally came to the attention of Zeus, who can't allow them to remain in deep antiquity, changing the course of human history. Convinced by Apollo to spare the Cities, Zeus instead moved everything on the island to the planet Plato, circling its own distant sun. Now, more than a generation has passed. The Cities are flourishing on Plato, and even trading with multiple alien species. Then, on the same day, two things happen. Pytheas dies as a human, returning immediately as Apollo in his full glory. And there's suddenly a human ship in orbit around Plato--a ship from Earth." --… (more)
Awards
Locus Award (Finalist — Fantasy Novel — 2017)
Mythopoeic Awards (Finalist — Adult Literature — 2017)
Sunburst Award (Shortlist — Adult — 2017)
NPR: Books We Love (2016)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2016-07
Physical description
334 p.; 8.6 inches
ISBN
9780765379023
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User reviews
LibraryThing member jsburbidge
This book is, first, an enormous sleight of hand. The first few sentences set the reader up for a plot - the interaction of Platonic and space going humans, a reverse First Contact story, and all that we get, on-page, is a bit if radio conversation. (We end up more or less knowing how it all comes
To be fair, it's pretty clear that the humans on Plato will be at least as alien to the rest of humanity as the aliens are. They have no real grasp of money and none at all of profit.
No, the book turns out to be about just what the title says - Necessity, Ananke.
If the first book can be considered to be centred on Athene via the playing out of her experiment with the city, ending with the Last Debate, and the second book to be centred on Apollo, then this book is centred on Zeus, for all of his appearing in only one scene.
Walton's Zeus is a layering of a personality derived from Homer over a deus philosophorum. In fact, Walton's entire model of the gods is an interesting blend of Plato and old Homeric-level polytheism. She entirely avoids the extended hierarchies of being of Neoplatonism: there are no extended emanations to separate a god who is the ultimate God from a creator. Zeus, like the Christian God, fills both roles (in fact, it's clear that he is the Christian God the Father as well, for a somewhat hyper-Arian reading of Christianity). Her gods are very non-Platonic - emotional, quarrelsome, changeable (again with the possible exception of Zeus). In a thoroughly Homeric way, the boundaries between Zeus and shadowy ancient powers like Necessity are blurred. They are, in fact, the Homeric Gods, except for Zeus, slotted into a world where the Forms have some sort status but are not anything like what Plato thought they were.
Further, in postulating a model where there is no unicity in the good, Walton departs from Aristotelianism as well as Platonism: of all the writers in that mode of which I know she is reminiscent only of Dante (Gilson's Dante the Philosopher points out that Dante, in both the De Monarchia and the Commedia, asserts a duality of good ends, a secular and a sacred, corresponding to the Empire and the Church).
The climax of the book sheds a most un-mythological light over the underpinnings of the universe: instead of Chaos and Old Night swirling around the ramparts, the preface to time turns out to be the ground of being / Necessity / in some sense Zeus.
There are, of course, other layers: a human (well, mainly human) love story, a beginning of a thoroughly Platonic city beyond anything seen so far, the hinted beginning of a whole new story regarding the general emancipation of the workers, and the promised but half averted inverse first contact story.
Well worth the wait.
Show More
out, but the closest we get to the other humans is seeing them from a spaceport window.)To be fair, it's pretty clear that the humans on Plato will be at least as alien to the rest of humanity as the aliens are. They have no real grasp of money and none at all of profit.
No, the book turns out to be about just what the title says - Necessity, Ananke.
If the first book can be considered to be centred on Athene via the playing out of her experiment with the city, ending with the Last Debate, and the second book to be centred on Apollo, then this book is centred on Zeus, for all of his appearing in only one scene.
Walton's Zeus is a layering of a personality derived from Homer over a deus philosophorum. In fact, Walton's entire model of the gods is an interesting blend of Plato and old Homeric-level polytheism. She entirely avoids the extended hierarchies of being of Neoplatonism: there are no extended emanations to separate a god who is the ultimate God from a creator. Zeus, like the Christian God, fills both roles (in fact, it's clear that he is the Christian God the Father as well, for a somewhat hyper-Arian reading of Christianity). Her gods are very non-Platonic - emotional, quarrelsome, changeable (again with the possible exception of Zeus). In a thoroughly Homeric way, the boundaries between Zeus and shadowy ancient powers like Necessity are blurred. They are, in fact, the Homeric Gods, except for Zeus, slotted into a world where the Forms have some sort status but are not anything like what Plato thought they were.
Further, in postulating a model where there is no unicity in the good, Walton departs from Aristotelianism as well as Platonism: of all the writers in that mode of which I know she is reminiscent only of Dante (Gilson's Dante the Philosopher points out that Dante, in both the De Monarchia and the Commedia, asserts a duality of good ends, a secular and a sacred, corresponding to the Empire and the Church).
The climax of the book sheds a most un-mythological light over the underpinnings of the universe: instead of Chaos and Old Night swirling around the ramparts, the preface to time turns out to be the ground of being / Necessity / in some sense Zeus.
There are, of course, other layers: a human (well, mainly human) love story, a beginning of a thoroughly Platonic city beyond anything seen so far, the hinted beginning of a whole new story regarding the general emancipation of the workers, and the promised but half averted inverse first contact story.
Well worth the wait.
Show Less
LibraryThing member foggidawn
Third book in an excellent trilogy that mingles mythology and the Classics with science fiction. I found this book a little more satisfying than its predecessor, or perhaps I just went into it with modified expectations. Either way, I highly recommend the series -- but of course, start with the
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first book, The Just City. Show Less
LibraryThing member Herenya
Necessity is set seventy years after The Just City began and forty years after The Philosopher Kings. Few of the city’s original inhabitants are still alive, the younger generations have no memory of the city’s original location, different communities have different interpretations as to how
In spite of all these changes, Necessity feels tightly connected to The Just City. The city’s founder, Athene, is missing, and finding her involves time travel, discovering what happened to Sokrates and uncovering Athene’s underlying motives for establishing the Just City in the first place.
The feeling of continuity also comes from some of the narrators: Apollo is one, as he has been since the beginning - just no longer constrained by a mortal form; Simmea’s granddaughter Marsilia is another; so is Crocus. I thought it was particularly interesting to see what this society means for the younger generations, now that it really has a more-established history - and some of its citizens have a strong sense of family history. As with the previous books, I found all the characters’ voices immediately engaging. That is a big part of what makes these stories, with their philosophical discussions and strange plots, so compelling.
Necessity pulls the pieces together and makes them all fit, even though some are unusual and unexpected. And that felt right for this trilogy.
”What?” Sokrates asked [...] “Do you mean to say [redacted] told you what Zeus wants? The purposes of life, spat at you like a curse? Gods! They’re not fit to be entrusted with their responsibilities. They’re like a bunch of heavily armed toddlers.”
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best to follow Plato’s Republic... and they have contact with aliens.In spite of all these changes, Necessity feels tightly connected to The Just City. The city’s founder, Athene, is missing, and finding her involves time travel, discovering what happened to Sokrates and uncovering Athene’s underlying motives for establishing the Just City in the first place.
The feeling of continuity also comes from some of the narrators: Apollo is one, as he has been since the beginning - just no longer constrained by a mortal form; Simmea’s granddaughter Marsilia is another; so is Crocus. I thought it was particularly interesting to see what this society means for the younger generations, now that it really has a more-established history - and some of its citizens have a strong sense of family history. As with the previous books, I found all the characters’ voices immediately engaging. That is a big part of what makes these stories, with their philosophical discussions and strange plots, so compelling.
Necessity pulls the pieces together and makes them all fit, even though some are unusual and unexpected. And that felt right for this trilogy.
”What?” Sokrates asked [...] “Do you mean to say [redacted] told you what Zeus wants? The purposes of life, spat at you like a curse? Gods! They’re not fit to be entrusted with their responsibilities. They’re like a bunch of heavily armed toddlers.”
Show Less
LibraryThing member ehines
I'm going to have to try this again, I think. Didn't finish as the plot veers strongly in the SF direction--much greater emphasis on robots, aliens and the like, which was not what brought me to the series (fantasy in the service of somewhat shameful, but still shameless, classicism) and not what I
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started the book looking for. So that defiance of expectation is what drives my response. I'll try to read it without the disappointed classicism in a few months. Show Less
LibraryThing member quondame
Apollo is back to his old self on Plato the planet and earth contact is imminent and a pair of alien races are hanging around. Zeus is involved
LibraryThing member ChrisRiesbeck
A worthy finish to an above average trilogy. If the second book was connected to the #MeToo movement, this one is about what it means to have a soul. There are aliens and there is Crocus, one of the Workers created by Athene to do the slave labor in the Just City. Crocus contributes a number of the
Despite the lack of any real narrative tension, I found the series engrossing, a rare experiment in telling an extended story based on the life of the mind.
Highly recommended.
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more interesting chapters, and helps move Necessity back to the Socratic debate mode of the first book. There is a quest, to find out what has happened to Athene, but it feels irrelevant to me - no more than a weak skeleton on which to hang the discussions. There is also the pending arrival of people from Earth to the planet Plato, but this is even less material, except for contrast with how the children of Athene's experiment have evolved. Despite the lack of any real narrative tension, I found the series engrossing, a rare experiment in telling an extended story based on the life of the mind.
Highly recommended.
Show Less
LibraryThing member elenaj
Starts slow and strange, and it gets stranger as it goes on. The thematically appropriate extended philosophical explorations nevertheless sometimes drag on more than I would have preferred.
And yet, this book is absolutely unique and delightful. I didn't intend to finish it tonight, but once I got
And yet, this book is absolutely unique and delightful. I didn't intend to finish it tonight, but once I got
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to the last 75 pages, I just couldn't put it down. Astonishing, incredibly satisfying, and highly recommended. (But read the first two books in the series first, or this one will make zero sense.) Show Less