Jo Walton: The Philosopher Kings

[bibliogramma]

The second book in Jo Walton's Thessaly trilogy, The Philosopher Kings, is in many ways an inversion of The Just City. Instead of asking questions, it proposes answers. Instead of trying to build the just society of Plato's Republic, it details the shattering of that singleminded goal into a multitude of separate factions, each imagining itself to be the proper way to bring about justice and excellence. Instead of hope and progress, it deals with loss and discord.

Apollo and Maia continue to be key narrative voices, but the death of Simmea brings to the forefront a new character, Arete, the semi-divine daughter of Apollo and Simmea.

The core questions are still the same - what is just, what is the good life, what is excellence, what is personal responsibility, and what is purpose of life. But where in the previous novel, the characters sought their answers to these questions within the framework of Plato's ideal, here they find personal answers in their interrogation, re-examination and alteration of the ideal. The Just City was idealistic theory, The Philosopher Kings is personal praxis.

And just as The Just City ended in a debate that prompted the action of a god and the changing of everything that had gone before, The Philosopher Kings ends much the same way, promising a conclusion as different and original as the two volumes that preceded it.