Description

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

One day, in a moment of philosophical puckishness, the time-travelling goddess Pallas Athene decides to put Plato to the test and create the Just City. She locates the City on a Mediterranean island and populates it with over ten thousand children and a few hundred adults from all eras of history . . . along with some handy robots from the far human future.

Meanwhile, Apollo – stunned by the realization that there are things that human beings understand better than he does – has decided to become a mortal child, head to Athene’s City and see what all the fuss is about.

Then Socrates arrives, and starts asking troublesome questions.

What happens next is a tale only the brilliant Jo Walton could tell.

Publisher Review

Rendered with Walton's usual power and beauty. * New York Times, on My Real Children * Jo Walton [is] utterly brilliant. * Independent, on My Real Children * Walton shines, as she always does, in the small and hurtful and glorious business of interpersonal relationships. -- Cory Doctorow An extraordinarily ambitious achievement . . . The Just City is a glorious example of one of the primary purposes of speculative fiction: serving as a map to the potentials and miseries of a possible world. * The Globe and Mail * The award-winning Walton has written a remarkable novel of ideas that demands - and repays - careful reading. It is itself an exercise in philosophy that often, courtesy of Socrates, critically examines Plato's ideas . . . the plot is always accessible and the world building and characterization are superb. In the end, the novel more than does justice to the idea of the Just City. * Booklist (starred review) * Jo Walton is one of science fiction's most versatile, thoughtful, and gripping writers . . . [A novel] about philosophy, history, gender and freedom [which] also manages to be a spectacular coming-of-age tale that encompasses everything from courtroom dramas to sexual intrigue. -- Cory Doctorow * Boing Boing *