'Here in the Just City you will become your best selves. You will learn and grow and strive to be excellent.'

One day, in a moment of philosophical puckishness, the time-travelling goddess Pallas Athene decides to put Plato to the test and create the Just City. She locates the City on a Mediterranean island and populates it with over ten thousand children and a few hundred adults from all eras of history . . . along with some handy robots from the far human future.

Meanwhile, Apollo - stunned by the realization that there ... Read moreare things that human beings understand better than he does - has decided to become a mortal child, head to Athene's City and see what all the fuss is about.

Then Socrates arrives, and starts asking troublesome questions.

What happens next is a tale only the brilliant Jo Walton could tell.