The city is winched along tracks through a devastated land full of hostile tribes. Rails must be freshly laid ahead of the city and carefully removed in its wake. Rivers and mountains present nearly insurmountable challenges to the ingenuity of the city's engineers. But if the city does not move, it will fall farther and farther behind the "optimum" into the crushing gravitational field that has transformed life on Earth. The only alternative to progress is death. The secret directorate that governs the city makes sure that its inhabitants know nothing of this. Raised in common in crèches, nurtured on synthetic food, prevented above all from venturing outside the closed circuit of the city, they are carefully sheltered from the dire necessities that have come to define human existence. And yet the city is in crisis. The people are growing restive, the population is dwindling, and the rulers know that, for all their efforts, slowly but surely the city is slipping ever farther behind the optimum. Helward Mann is a member of the city's elite. Better than anyone, he knows how tenuous is the city's continued existence. But the world--he is about to discover--is infinitely stranger than the strange world he believes he knows so well.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
So good I read it twice:
I first came across "The Inverted World" in a SF collection of short stories many, many years ago. Th funny thing is that the ending was very different and to be honest a lot more plausible than the one in the full length book which does require a great leap of faith. Having said that this book totally sucked me in. I read it more or less straight through (I can't remember the last time I did that with a book) and then I read it straight through again (never done that). I am surprised that there has... more info
A High Watermark of Science Fiction:
Amazon allows us one thousand words for our reviews. For a review of "The Inverted World", only one word is necessary, and that word is 'masterpiece'. This is the rarest of finds in the science fiction section, a book that does nearly everything right. The City is on the move. It's a contraption a third of a mile long, featuring an odd mix of the modern, the medieval, and everything in between. Electric power is provided by a nuclear generator and sophisticated machines crank out food and clothing.... more info
A little bit ponderous, but memorable and intriguing:
First off, I must say that I enjoy comic books, but not generally Science Fiction. I find SF to generally be misogynistic and kind of reactionary. I read "The Prestige" and loved it, so decided to check out another book by Priest. I settled on this one. It is somewhat impersonal. The characters are pretty thin. There are only two fleshed out characters in the book, and even these two are sparsely developed. Yet the story is compelling and thought provoking. I ended up drawing the shape of the world on... more info
Extraordinary tale for its time.:
I first read this book when I was in high school. I found the 'inverted world' concept fascinating. I thought the 'twist' at the end was very clever. Many have disparaged this book, but they compare it to modern science fiction. I feel this book has aged very well. Often I buy a book I loved as a child only to find that the fascination and wonder is no longer there. Not so with this book.
![5-Pack Premium Reusable LCD Screen Protector with Lint Cleaning Cloth for Apple iPhone 3G 8GB 16GB [Accessory Export Packaging]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/4155OOdySdL._SL75_.jpg)
![Plantronics Voyager 510 Bluetooth Headset [Retail Packaging]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41XB1238FJL._SL75_.jpg)
