Inverted World

Inverted World (1987) – Christopher Priest
Gollancz | ISBN: 0575039930
Condition: Good | Sold by Crappy Old Books

The world is a strange place. Most of us accept that it is round, that time moves forwards, and that towns generally remain where they were built, unless somebody decides to demolish them to make way for a shopping centre. But imagine living in a city that must constantly be moved across a mysterious landscape, where the passage of time is measured in miles and where stopping for too long might have consequences considerably worse than missing the last train home.

Welcome to Inverted World, Christopher Priest’s brilliantly unsettling science-fiction novel, in which reality itself appears to have developed a serious technical malfunction.

At the centre of the story stands Helward Mann, a young man growing up in the city of Earth, a peculiar settlement whose inhabitants live according to an elaborate system of guilds, regulations and closely guarded knowledge. The city’s most remarkable feature is that it moves. Not metaphorically, as estate agents might claim of an exciting new neighbourhood, but literally, inching its way across a hostile landscape on railway tracks that must be continually constructed ahead and dismantled behind.

The reason for this extraordinary arrangement is apparently connected with a mysterious phenomenon known as the optimum, which the city must relentlessly pursue. Falling behind is unthinkable, although exactly why remains one of those irritating secrets that the authorities prefer not to explain to ordinary citizens.

As Helward progresses through the guild system, he begins to discover the extraordinary nature of the world beyond the city’s boundaries. Distances behave strangely, familiar assumptions become increasingly unreliable, and the physical environment seems to operate according to rules that would give a conventional geography teacher an immediate nervous breakdown.

Priest constructs a fascinating mystery in which the reader, like Helward, must gradually question everything previously accepted as fact. Is the city really travelling through the world its inhabitants believe they occupy? Are the guilds protecting essential knowledge or perpetuating an elaborate misunderstanding? And what happens when the evidence of one’s own senses begins to contradict the explanations supplied by supposedly knowledgeable authorities?

Originally published in 1974, Inverted World is a remarkable example of British speculative fiction at its most inventive. It combines philosophical puzzles, ingenious world-building, psychological uncertainty and a growing sense that something is fundamentally wrong with the entire arrangement.

Unlike science-fiction adventures that rely upon enormous explosions and intergalactic battles, Priest achieves much of his effect through the gradual erosion of certainty. The greatest danger is not necessarily an alien monster or a malfunctioning spaceship, but the possibility that the world you understand is not the world that actually exists.

This 1987 Gollancz edition, offered in Good condition by Crappy Old Books, is an excellent addition to the shelves of serious science-fiction enthusiasts, Christopher Priest collectors and readers who enjoy intelligent mysteries with reality-bending consequences.

A wonderfully original novel about perception, knowledge and the disturbing possibility that civilisation can organise itself around a completely mistaken understanding of existence.

And if you thought your local council had questionable planning policies, imagine living somewhere that has to lay railway tracks simply to keep the town from falling behind.

At least the council tax bill would be interesting.

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