The book’s protagonist, Jonathon Bridge, is a supplicant who spends a year under submission. Previously a partner at a major software company, Jonathon behaved callously towards the young women he worked with there (in accordance with the company’s corporate culture), using them for sex, and choosing to overlook a rape committed by a colleague. Jonathon eventually agrees to enter The Fortress in light of his wife’s pregnancy and her reluctance to expose their child to his ‘corrupting influence’. While his child – a girl, he feels certain – is in Adalia’s womb, he will be ‘enclosed and reshaped’ by the Vaik; reborn a good father.

It is unclear if Jones intends the analogy between the corporation’s use of women’s bodies and the Vaik’s use of the men who submit to them. In both contexts the question of consent is complicated by the degree to which one can choose to say no. Regardless, it is the Vaik who are vindicated. As Jonathon concedes: their methods ‘turned a man inward, towards himself. What he found there made The Fortress feel just.’