The Philosopher Kings--A Novel

May 18, 2015
The artificially constructed Republic, populated with people whom the goddess Athene stole from their native time lines, has splintered into warring factions after the events of The Just City. Apollo, living as a human, grieves for his wife, who died in a battle, and his subsequent meandering journey slowly reveals truths that will transform the small society. Walton succeeds well in her mission of showing that the utopia envisioned by Plato is impossible, but her use of god-level powers, including a book-ending deus ex machina, strips the book of tension. The rape of Apollo’s wife is noted in a toss-off journal entry, and her entire existence is reduced to her violation and death, which Walton uses to motivate Apollo to take his children on a lengthy quest for brutal revenge. Later, a second rapist is forgiven and ends up being an acolyte of virginal Athene. The philosophical questions just aren’t enough to push past the troubling use of sexual assault in this unsatisfying sequel. Agent: Jack Byrne, Sternig and Byrne Literary.

Starred review from May 15, 2015
Walton continues her tale of the goddess Athene's experiment to establish a city based on the principles of Plato's Republic, inhabited by stray scholars and former child-slaves harvested from various time periods. Twenty years after the events of The Just City (2014), the original city has splintered into five, each convinced that it's following the correct philosophical path. But instead of the enlightened rule Plato dreamed of, there are petty squabbles and thefts of the art Athene looted from the dark corners of history. When Simmea, the aspiring philosopher who was such a sympathetic narrator in the previous volume, is killed during one of these art raids, her husband, Pytheas (aka Apollo in human form), swears vengeance, believing the perpetrator to be Kebes, Simmea's jealous former suitor who sailed off to parts unknown. So Pytheas, his children (including his daughter by Simmea, Arete), and a small crew take their one remaining ship on a voyage of exploration. Along the way, they discover the fate of Kebes, and Pytheas' children learn what it truly means to be the children of a god, just as Pytheas begins to understand what it means to be human. The Just City seemed more thought experiment than novel, practically checking off points in a philosophy lecture. But Walton is more audacious here, launching into her own territory; the plotting and characterization are richer in what begins as a fantasy and then, just at the end, abruptly and intriguingly veers into science fiction. While Kebes remains something of a one-dimensional villain, Ikaros/Giovanni Pico della Mirandola becomes more than the arrogantly oblivious rapist he is in Book 1, and living with and grieving for Simmea has seriously chipped away at Pytheas' hubris. There's still more talk than action, but enough happens that the end result is a satisfying conclusion, with room for more if desired.

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May 15, 2015

The original experimental community set up by the goddess Pallas Athene in The Just City fell apart after the Last Debate, when the children brought up according to the Platonic ideals of The Republic started disagreeing with their teachers and Athene turned Sokrates into a fly. Now there are numerous cities, each arranged according to its own interpretations of a perfect society. Conflict between the metropolises has been escalating as the story opens, leading up to the death of the god Apollo's beloved Simmea. Apollo, who has been living as a mortal to better understand the human experience, leaves the Just City in his grief, wishing vengeance upon the splinter group he believes is responsible for Simmea's death. VERDICT This continues Walton's fascinating exploration of what it might be like if people lived according to Platonic ideals but with messy human emotions and urges complicating matters at every turn.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2015
A favorite tactic of ancient Greek philosophers was the thought experiment, a tradition that Walton executes with zeal. What if Plato's Republic was real and what if the goddess Athena took to transporting people from all eras of history to populate Plato's ideal city with the philosophically inclined? In this second series installment, the sun god Apollo, curious to learn about humanity, has spent half a lifetime incarnated as a man living in the Just City. But the tragedies of mortal life are driving him toward a desperate quest for vengeance. Those interested in the philosophies of Socrates, Plato, and others will enjoy this fast-paced, imaginative vehicle for ancient musings about virtue and truth, but a deep-seated interest in such things may be a prerequisite for getting the most out of this book. Walton's simple, direct first-person narration doesn't cater to anyone unwilling to immediately consider, with no dramatic nonsense in the way, how we should live.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)