Inverted World
First US edition
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| Author | Christopher Priest |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Andrew M. Stephenson (1st US) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science Fiction |
| Publisher |
Faber and Faber (UK) Harper & Row (US) |
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Publication date
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1974 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 256 (1st UK) |
| ISBN | |
Inverted World (The Inverted World in some editions) is a 1974 science fiction novel by Christopher Priest, expanded from a short story by the same name included in New Writings in SF 22 (1973). In 2010, it was included in the SF Masterworks collection.
In the novel, an entire city and its residents travel slowly across an alien planet on railway tracks. The city's engineers must work to lay fresh track for the city, and pick up the old track as it moves. Many people are unaware that the city is even moving. A crisis ensues as its population decreases, the people grow unruly, and an obstacle looms ahead.
The book consists of a prologue and five parts. The first, third and fifth sections are narrated in the first person by the protagonist, Helward Mann; the second follows Helward, but is written in the third person; while the prologue and fourth part center on Elizabeth Khan, also from the third person perspective.
Helward lives in a city called "Earth", which is slowly being winched along at an average speed of 0.1 miles per day (0.16 km per day) on four railroad tracks northward toward an ever-moving, mysterious "optimum". The city, which Helward estimates is 1,500 feet (460 m) long and no more than 200 feet (61 m) high, is not on the planet Earth; the sun is disc shaped, with two spikes extending above and below its center. The city's inhabitants live in the hope of rescue from their lost home world.
Upon reaching adulthood at the age of "650 miles", Helward leaves the crèche in which he has been raised and becomes an apprentice Future Surveyor. His guild surveys the land ahead, choosing the best route. The Track Guild tears up the track south of the city to re-lay in the north. Traction is responsible for moving the city, while the Bridge-Builders overcome terrain obstacles. The Barter Guild recruits labourers ("tooks") from the primitive, poverty-stricken nearby villages they pass, as well as women brought temporarily into the city to help combat the puzzling shortfall of female babies. The Militia provides protection, armed with crossbows, against tooks resentful of the city's hard bargaining and the taking of their women.
Only guildsmen (all male) have access to the outside world and are oath-bound to keep what they know a secret; in fact, most people do not even know the city moves. Helward's wife Victoria becomes somewhat resentful when he is reluctant to answer questions about his work.
The purpose and organisation of the city is laid out in a document written by the founder: Destaine's Directive, with entries dating from 1987 to 2023. Helward reads it, but it does not satisfy his curiosity as to what the optimum is or why the city continually tries to reach it.
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