Catherine Fisher, Incarceron (Penguin, 2010)
The Young Adult genre has had to struggle, perhaps more than any other genre except Romance, with the daunting obstacle of Preconceived Notions. Too often, uninformed readers focus on the "Young" part and assume that the label indicates a narrative where the language is simplified, the punches are pulled, and the world-building is shallow and full of unambiguous moral imagery. With Incarceron, Catherine Fisher dismantles nearly all of these preconceptions, and forces the reader to remember that the A in YA does indeed stand for "Adult."
The novel's title comes from the name of a world-sized Prison created by a futuristic human society in an attempt to create Paradise -- placing society's undesirables inside as guinea pigs. A hundred and fiftysome years later, Incarceron is a self-sustaining, self-aware closed system. No one gets in. No one gets out. But it's hardly a paradise.
Inside Incarceron, our protagonist, Finn, just wants to survive in a particularly violent and lawless area of the Prison. Most of his fellow thieves and cutthroats believe he's a Cellborn -- a human created by Incarceron from recycled materials (nothing goes to waste inside Incarceron). However, Finn has strange fits that bring up odd visions and memories that convince him, and a few others, that he actually comes from Outside. However, he has no solid memories of his life before he woke up in Incarceron three years ago.
In the process of robbing and receiving ransom from some less fortunate inmates, Finn comes across a strange crystal Key emblazed with a symbol that matches the mysterious tattoo on his wrist, and he believes he just might have found the one thing necessary to make an Escape.
However, life outside the Prison, while better, is still far from perfect. Incarceron was one of the ways in which humanity sought to improve and protect itself after devastating wars, but the institution of the Protocol was the other. Thanks to the Protocol, the free populace is forced to live an antiquated lifestyle based on an idealized historical Era (in this case, early nineteenth-century Britain). Anything out of Era (anachronistic) is forbidden -- including technology, modern appliances, and medicine.
In theory, the halt of social progress is intended to keep society peaceful, but in practice the only ones truly denied modern conveniences are those too poor to get away with it. Our other protagonist is Claudia Arlexa, the privileged daughter of Incarceron's Warden. Despite being raised and trained in the hypocrisies, half-truths, and double-dealings of Court life, she longs for freedom. Knowing her father is hiding something from her, she defies the rules, breaks into his office and discovers a crystal key that reveals Incarceron is far from the utopia she's been told it is.
Catherine Fisher squeezes a lot into a relatively fast-paced book but, much like Incarceron itself, this author lets nothing go to waste. The two storylines, taking place as they do in such disparate settings, nevertheless intertwine quite well, and the secondary cast of characters provides excellent support. Nevertheless, nothing is easy. While Finn and Claudia are more or less good (are at least well-intentioned), they are surrounded by characters of varying moral ambiguity, and the best choices are rarely the most painless.
Incarceron is a dark, thoughtful, ambiguous, original, and thoroughly entertaining book that raises a lot of questions, particularly regarding the idea of a changeless utopia and the inevitable suffering that comes from repressing natural progress. Pretty heavy stuff for a "teenager's book." Silly reader, YA books aren't just for kids!
