Catherine Fisher

Great writing, a nice quick pace, and a driving plot kept me from putting this book down much once I'd started in on it. Still, it wasn't totally satisfying for me.

The dystopian world Catherine Fisher creates in the book is totally intriguing: After a violent upheaval called the "Time of Rage" the government takes control and puts all the criminals (along with the meek and the poor, I think) into a vast prison called Incarceron. Incarceron is supposed to be a utopia, but the sentient (artificial?) intelligence that controls the prison turns it into a hellish wasteland. Meanwhile, outside the prison, the elite are forced to live in a false feudal-ish era because the government has decreed that modernity and change are dangerous.

So you have a 17-year-old boy, Finn, and his motley group of friends inside Incerceron trying to get out. And you have a girl, Claudia, trying to discover the secrets of Incarceron to escape an arranged marriage to the future King. Not a bad setup.

My criticisms are largely matters of taste, I guess. None of the characters were particularly likable. Finn and Claudia were both hella angsty. And there wasn't very much in the way of humor or good feelings. If you don't mind 442 pages of dark, dreary, and tense then this will surely thrill you. As for me...I wasn't thrilled.

Another criticism, and a tiny bit of a spoiler, is that this book seems to be true sci-fi, but kind of drifts into fantasy in the end, by which I mean the conclusion lacked a logical explanation. Maybe the second book will do a better job of explaining Sapphique (I'm guessing so, since it's title is "Sapphique"). We shall see.… (more)

This book would make a wonderful film, with its cinematic blend of 18th-century costume drama, mythological fantasy, and post-apocalyptic cyberpunk fun. Fisher tells an engaging story that has a bit of a Golden Compass feel to it.

However, the characters weren't compelling enough for me to consider picking up the sequels. It wasn't just that Claudia didn't interest me (I have a low tolerance for rebellious princess-types). Finn was even likable, and his quasi-mystical seizures gave a lot of texture to the story.

Yet both leads lack depth - not only do they not change during the story, but the reader knows everything there is to know about them by about page 50. In general, none of the emotional moments or reveals in this story surprised me, and there are few moments when the main characters surprise themselves. Which would be fine for many action-driven YA novels, but the narrative seems to demand a bit more that what Fisher gives us.

So, an imaginative book but not one that appealed to me as an adult reader who enjoys complex characters.

(Minor quibble: Sapphique sounds less like a trickster god and more like a Francophone feminist bookstore. But maybe that's just me.)… (more)

This is the second book in the Clockwork Crow series. After she has rescued Tomas from the Fae Folk, Serene is content to live happily ever after at Plas-y-Fran and enjoy the summer. Things are going great until Tomas and Serene are alone for a while and a mysterious governess comes to the house. Along with her, she brings a carousel that is not like any ordinary carousel. It is magic and seems to have bewitched the whole family except for Serene. It is up to her and the crow to save the whole family and banish the strange happenings from the house for good. I would recommend this for anyone who has read the first book in the series. You can read them independently, but it would be better to start with the first book in the series.… (more)