Catherine Fisher’s Incarceron is a dystopian young adult fantasy which calls to mind other dystopian YA fantasies like Hunger Games and The Maze Runner. Fierce teenage heroes and heroines join forces to reclaim their humanity from the huge faceless machine that robs them of individuality and freedom – which, incidentally, is not a bad metaphor for young adulthood.
Incarceron is also an action-adventure novel from the get-go, with Finn, our young hero, chafing against his bonds (both figurative and literal) from the first page. Intrigue and futuristic technological elements help drive the plot, and while Fisher drops a pretty big clue about who Finn actually is at around page 50, it becomes increasingly clear that the bigger mystery is about what Incarceron is and how Finn got there. From the cover copy, we know that Incarceron is a sentient prison, but what does it really want? And what is it, exactly? Another world, a parallel universe?
In at least one part of the novel, I felt the same frisson of excitement I experienced when Philip Pullman got mindbendingly philosophical in his masterpiece His Dark Materials trilogy, although the two stories are on the surface not very similar. Of course, now that I’ve written that, I can think of a lot of themes and situations the two share.
Claudia, the heroine of the novel, is the daughter of the enigmatic Warden of Incarceron, who is playing a much deeper game than Claudia realizes. As Claudia and her mentor, the Sapient Jared, discover more about what Incarceron is, they become drawn into a secret rebellion that rallies around a figurehead called Sapphique, the only person who has ever escaped from the prison.
Finn’s only goal is to get himself and his friends out of Incarceron and into the freedom of the mythical Outside. Claudia’s corresponding goal is to cross into Incarceron and bring Finn back to his rightful place, but no one will get exactly what they want. As it turns out, Outside is as oppressive as Incarceron, because in this novel, wherever humans are, they create their own prison.
The Dilettante Reader 