The Just City
2015 novel written by Jo Walton
The Just City is a science fiction/fantasy novel by Jo Walton, published by Tor Books in January 2015. It is the first book of the Thessaly trilogy. The sequel The Philosopher Kings was published in June 2015, and the final volume, Necessity, in July 2016.
Synopsis
The Greek goddess Athene plans an experiment around Plato's Republic, and Apollo decides to join her, but wants to do it as an incarnate human.
She collects people from throughout history who have prayed to her that they wish they could live in Plato's Republic, and places them on the island of Thera prior to its volcanic destruction. Apollo blends in with the 10,000 human children the city "masters" acquire from slave markets. The masters raise the children to achieve the ideal society as described in Plato's Republic. Socrates' arrival in the fifth year of the city precipitates a crisis.
Characters
The characters include:
Pytheas, mortal incarnation of Apollo, god of literature, the arts, and knowledge through intuition.
Maia, young woman from the Victorian era.
The public source identifies “The Just City” as 2015 novel written by Jo Walton. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Just, City and novel.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19364466. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2015 and 2016.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Just City” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.