[1] Published by Hodder Children's Books, it is the first in a line of novels centered on Finn and Claudia, two adolescents individually confined by the Warden of Incarceron.

Catherine Fisher "wanted to write a book about a prison" and conceived Incarceron, an automated world controlled by a personified mechanical power.

This tireless, inhuman "overlord" controls all life as it monitors inmates by means of cameras that appear as glowing red lights and dispenses punishment and death on a daily basis without mercy.

However, since then, King Endor released a royal decree that Time would be "stopped" in order for humanity to survive, and now the Realm is trapped in the 17th century.

[4] Fisher’s accomplished skills and depth of feeling was recognised by The Bookseller, who described the novel as “imaginative, rich in texture and vividly realised.” Junot Diaz from The Wall Street Journal labelled the book as a thriller of the highest order and said that “Fisher could give the show '24' a run for its money,” [4] while Mary Quattlebaum from The Washington Post praised “this eerie, elegant fantasy”, highlighting the intricate plot, fictitious universe and likening the relationship of the book and readers to Incarceron and its prisoners.