Necessity

Walton delivers an adequately satisfying conclusion to her Thessaly trilogy (The Just City, The Philosopher Kings). The Greek goddess Athene brought a collection of people from ancient Greece to our near future on a planet called Plato, where they attempted to make Plato’s Republic a reality. Forty years after being relocated, they finally make contact with the rest of humankind. Rather than engage with the intriguing philosophical and ethical issues presented by this reconnection, the story focuses on freshly re-deified Apollo, who discovers that Athene cannot be found anywhere and sets out to track her down. Walton makes the fresh and delightful choice to pull point-of-view characters from a broader cross-section of society, including Jason, a low-caste fisherman of the Remnant City, and Crocus, the first of the Just City’s robots to become self-aware, but the story bogs down in its supernatural elements. The mortal characters are given tragically short shrift, and the abandonment of questions raised by earlier installments will leave readers wishing this story had strived for greater excellence. Agent: Jack Byrne, Sternig and Byrne Literary. (July)