A review by alex_watkins
Sapphique by Catherine Fisher

5.0

As you may be able to tell from the ridiculous number of tags I gave this book, there is a bit of genre melding going on here. In many ways it resembles Japanese manga: a future that looks like the past in the aftermath of some cataclysmic war. But in other respects it is more like American Sci-Fi with a fearsome AI that has broken lose of its programming, a HAL that has quite a bit more than two astronauts in his grasps. This is the sequel to Incarceron, and I have to say it's just as good if not better, a rare thing for sequels these days. And thank god, it ended after two books, Good bless Catherine Fisher for not, like every other YA author, turning her book into a trilogy.

I believe in the last book I felt the scenes inside the prison of Incarceron were stronger than those outside. Now there is parity, with those in the real world just as compelling. However the world inside the prisin are still a favorite because of the great imagination, scene setting, and just general awesomeness. It real is a compelling world that has been created here. Not only that but the development of the Incareron AI is very interesting, a twist I wasn't expecting. Although this book is science fiction, it blends it almost seamlessly with fantasy or at least mythology. Perhaps everything can be explained with science, but at the same time there is some doubt. Is it just myth and legend? I liked that. Though it does leave the reader slightly confused as to what, exactly, is going on.