Tue 17 Jan 2012 @ 20:03
bookschristoher priestinverted worldscience fiction
A few years ago I read about 70 books that were part of a series called SF Masterworks, a collection of reprinted classics from the SF genre. This was a great series which introduced me to many great books and helped me establish my particular likes and dislikes in the genre. The publisher stopped the series about 2007, but eventually started up again in 2010, reprinting some of the books that had been part of the original series, and starting to bring more great SF books back into print as part of the new series. Last year I re-read several of the titles that I had loved when I first read them a few years ago now, and I wrote about it here. This year I decided that I would read some of the new titles in the series, and I started with Inverted World by Christopher Priest. This was actually a book that I had heard of a couple of years ago and wanted to read, but I couldn’t find a copy as it was out-of-print; that is one of the reasons why the SF Masterworks series is so great, bringing older but highly praised books to a new audience. The protagonist of the book is a young man for a city called Earth. The city is being moved; for the past two hundred years most people have lived in comfort inside the city while teams of guildsmen slowly move it on massive train tracks. The narrator, when he comes of age, joins one of these guilds, and learns about the nature of the strange world that they live on, and the reasons why the city has to be moved. The setting is incredibly interesting, a really fascinating and original idea. The writing and the way this world is introduced to the reader through the eyes of the narrator/protagonist is extremely compelling. It is full of imaginative and interesting ideas about perception. And then there is a twist which is really incredibly unexpected and very good. I really loved it, and it was a great way to kick off what will hopefully be some good SF reading for me this year.

A few years ago I read about 70 books that were part of a series called SF Masterworks, a collection of reprinted classics from the SF genre. This was a great series which introduced me to many great books and helped me establish my particular likes and dislikes in the genre. The publisher stopped the series about 2007, but eventually started up again in 2010, reprinting some of the books that had been part of the original series, and starting to bring more great SF books back into print as part of the new series.

Last year I re-read several of the titles that I had loved when I first read them a few years ago now, and I wrote about it here. This year I decided that I would read some of the new titles in the series, and I started with Inverted World by Christopher Priest. This was actually a book that I had heard of a couple of years ago and wanted to read, but I couldn’t find a copy as it was out-of-print; that is one of the reasons why the SF Masterworks series is so great, bringing older but highly praised books to a new audience.

The protagonist of the book is a young man for a city called Earth. The city is being moved; for the past two hundred years most people have lived in comfort inside the city while teams of guildsmen slowly move it on massive train tracks. The narrator, when he comes of age, joins one of these guilds, and learns about the nature of the strange world that they live on, and the reasons why the city has to be moved.

The setting is incredibly interesting, a really fascinating and original idea. The writing and the way this world is introduced to the reader through the eyes of the narrator/protagonist is extremely compelling. It is full of imaginative and interesting ideas about perception. And then there is a twist which is really incredibly unexpected and very good. I really loved it, and it was a great way to kick off what will hopefully be some good SF reading for me this year.