Incarceron (Incarceron #1): Book Review

 

• Author: Catherine Fisher   
• First Published: 2007
• Genre: Science Fiction   
• Rating: ★★★☆

In a world where man has created the perfect device to house the world's inmates in an ultimate utopia, one man and one woman join forces to prove them wrong. Coming to a bookshelf near you, it's Incarceron. Intrigued? I was too.

Yes, this steampunk dystopian novel dares to take on the narrative from two perspectives, an inmate who is convinced he's come from the outside world, and the Warden's daughter who is also convinced that he comes from the outside world. Did it work? Mostly, hence the 3.5-stars.

I loved the whole premise of this book - a prison that is a supposed utopia where the world's criminals are stored, a world where they are forced to stay in the Victorian era, I think, characters who are battling man and nature in order to be free of Incarceron and of a loveless marriage. Yes! What I didn't love was how it was written.

For the first quarter of the book or so I found it difficult to get into the book for more than a few pages at a time because the writing is a little disjointed at times and the descriptions and world building, but only just. It was the descriptions of environments that threw me off the most because this Incarceron is a whole new world full of its own complexities, sights, smells, sounds, dangers, and oddities. These characteristics of this new world were present, but not in a way that I found really easy to get into. Once I turned my brain off and stopped fighting it however, the book got a lot more enjoyable. I'm just a little disappointed that it fell flat on descriptions because it had so much promise with the steampunk flare, something that was a new and exciting venture for me.

The story itself however did move at a pretty decent pace, and I daresay could likely have been a bit longer, if splitting this duology into a trilogy instead. I feel like then we could have gotten a better feel for the prison, for the Warden, for the court and all that was really at stake with this doomed marriage, and more steampunk trinkets. That last one is just a little treat for me. As it stands, this book is good if you want the feel of trilogy but only have the time for a duology. 

I also enjoyed the snippets of steampunk that we got to see inside and outside Incarceron. I've never delved into this sort of setting before, so to have tinkerers making illegal devices was quite exciting. I won't say much more about this because it'll give away spoilers, but I liked how the steampunk elements and tools were used as pivotal ingredients in moving the story along, and not just an environmental background factor; it made it all the more tangible. 

Have you read steampunk novels before? Does this one sound up your alley? Have you read this before?

Cheers!