My Books of The Year - III : Inverted World - Christopher Priest

Tweet

Bit of an old one but new to me and that is what counts. If you are a fan of Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines series this book was a major inspiration, he has admitted as much many times. Set in a world that may be earth or perhaps a colony of earth, a city moves along a rail track that is built ahead of it and dismantled behind it towards an ever moving point on a map. The book charts the story of a young apprentice sent to learn the skills of being a navigator and through his eyes we start to understand the world around him. Like all of Priest's work (I especially recommend the more recent The Gradual) it deals with concepts as large as the flow of time, belonging and cultural divisions whilst still being a great adventure. With the film of Mortal Engines looking like it is not even going to make a fraction of the expected return, maybe Peter Jackson should have looked to this original source to find the subject of his film.