Sapphique by Catherine Fisher

Sapphique by Catherine Fisher

Finn and Claudia managed to escape the insane prison Incarceron, but now that he is on the outside Finn doesn’t feel free. He thinks that the suffocating procedures of the realm are just as stifling as being trapped inside Incarceron. Especially since Claudia believes that he is the real Prince Giles and the heir to the throne, and he still can’t remember anything about his past. Then a man pretending to be Prince Giles comes to court and he knows things that Finn can’t remember. Now Finn has to prove that he is the real Prince Giles or be killed by the Queen.

Inside Incarceron Keiro and Attia are trying to survive the harsh conditions that are slowly getting worse. The prison is distracted from its true purpose—taking care of the inmates—and is focused on creating a body so it can escape. The desire for escape fuels the quest for the glove of Sapphique, a mysterious magical artifact that is supposed to help the wearer escape from the prison.

So,the sequel to Incarceron I enjoyed this book and found it entertaining. It won’t be one of my favorites of the year, but I really enjoyed revisiting the characters. I think my favorite character by far is Jared. For some reason he fascinates me. I think it is partially because he seems the most good-hearted of all the main characters, and he makes interesting stuff happen when he is around. I bet some will be unhappy about his fate in this book, but I am kind of pleased that he still gets to hang around. I was worried that his sickness was going to kill him, but the author successfully found a way to preserve him—at least in spirit. I found it interesting that we found out how fake the outside world was in this novel, and intriguing that it was so similar to Incarceron in many ways.

Yet, we never really find out why Prince Giles was sent to Incarceron, and some other backstory threads were kind of left hanging. The immediate plot and character arcs were interesting and satisfying, but some of the world-building and backstory plots were left unwrapped up. So while I really enjoyed hearing the end of this tale and more about the characters the book didn’t fill all the expectations I had for it. I sort of wanted the mystery parts resovled, but the author focused more strongly on the action-adventure plot lines. So entertaining to read, but not everything I wanted.

Author's website

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Everyone thinks that the Incarceron created Finn, but he has memories of before. Memories of some place outside the prison. The only one who really believes him is an old sapient wise-man named Gildas, who believes in the lore about Sapphique, the only prisoner to ever escape. Gildas believes that between his knowledge of Sapphique lore and Finn’s visions of the outside that following Finn is the way to escape. Finn thinks that they both must be crazy until he finds a woman that recognizes the tattoo on his arm. The tattoo looks exactly like a key that she found, and once Finn gets his hands on the key he finds out that there really is an outside, because he can talk to a girl named Claudia through it.

When Claudia’s father, the warden of Incarceron, comes home and announces that her wedding date to Prince Casper has been moved up, Claudia panics. She hasn’t wanted to marry him since she learned of the engagement, and now she can no longer ignore the fact that the day of reckoning has come. As the maids flurry around the house making preparations she knows that her time at the house is short, and so is her time to find out exactly what her father is planning. So she and her tutor Jared make bold plans to break into his study, but she doesn’t find what she expected. All she finds is a key—a key to Incarceron. This key brings her into communication with Finn, a prisoner who is trying to find the way out. As the two communicate they discover a web of secrets that will change both of their worlds forever.

So I took a risk when I bought Incarceron because I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it or not. I had read several reviews of it online. Some people loved it and others didn’t. One of the kids in the High School library raved that it was ranked among one of the best books he had ever read. I knew enough about the book to know that it was sort of fit into the steampunk sub-genre. So, I decided to risk it and ordered it off of Barnes and Noble the weekend that they sent a 15% off coupon to me. Incarceron doesn’t rank among one of the best books I have ever read, but I can recommend it as a good book. I was intrigued by the premise of the story from the very beginning, and became interested in both Claudia and Finn. It wasn’t until the last half of the book that I got hooked into plot and couldn’t wait to see what would happen next. I really liked all the Sapphique lore and thought that it gave the book a nice mythical feel to it.

The book is set in a future in which the king has declared that the kingdom must go back to old values in order to avoid war and social collapse. So the government has mandated that everything must be in era, specifically the Victorian Era. I had a debate with my husband about whether or not it was really steampunk because it was set in the future, and the technology wasn’t based off of the industrial revolution, but was far more advanced. I think my husband had a point when he said that most of the charm of steampunk is the alternate history aspect of it, but I feel that those who love steampunk stories will find enough Victorian era inspiration in the book to enjoy it as a steampunkish novel. I think the biggest complaint I had about this novel was that some of the descriptions were hard to follow on multiple occasions, but I don’t think this ruins the overall enjoyment of the characters and plot line. I am intrigued enough to want to check out the sequel Sapphique in December.

Catherine Fisher's Author website