Necessity, Jo Walton
It took me far too long to get round to reading this, but I’m glad I did so after just now having reread the first and second book. I think it would’ve been rather odd to jump back in without preparation: by this point, there are so many names and things to remember, not to mention following which city believes what and who is related to whom exactly. It’s definitely not a good book to start with, but I never do think that about series — I find it so weird when people jump in at the middle! I could have done with a family tree by this point, even having read the other books so recently; that might have helped me keep everything straight!
In any case, Necessity takes place on the new planet Plato, just after Pytheas — Apollo incarnate — has finally died, leaving behind a whole tribe of descendants. One of his descendants is a point of view character, but we also get Apollo himself, Crocus (the Worker who first became sentient!) and a Silver-ranked member of the city, Jason, who is rather in love with one of Apollo’s grandchildren. Oh, and the planet has just been conquered by the first other humans to venture out that far from Earth the conventional way.
Most of the story is taken up with chasing Athene through time, and it turns out that she did have another reason for setting up the Republic. There’s also a new god — an alien god — and the inclusion of alien characters, the Saeli. In other words, there’s magic, tech, philosophy, romance, aliens, spaceships, prophecies, gods, and more or less everything else you can think of, in a nice big melting pot.
I’ll admit that this trilogy hasn’t been my favourite of Jo’s works; I did love The Just City, but The Philosopher Kings didn’t work as well for me. I’m still not entirely sure what I think of this book, though I think it finishes out exploring some of themes of the whole trilogy beautifully. And I read it in a day, almost without pausing; Jo’s prose is always so clear and leads you on effortlessly from page to chapter to oops I finished the whole book in a day. So though it’s not my favourite, I have to say I admire it — I wasn’t sure how things could pull together, and not go sprawling off into infinity, but this does pull it off. It’s a satisfying end, and there’s so much more I could talk about!
Leave a Reply