Christopher Priest's Inverted World is one of the few works of hard science fiction that I would consider recommending to those who are not avid readers of the genre, because I feel it works for several reasons, and the science fiction-related payoff isn't the main one.
There are several inversions here. The first, and most obvious one, is that our narrator lives in a city called "Earth" that moves on rails through the landscape of the unnamed planet the novel is set on.
The second, and more subtle one, is how this could be, in the hands of another author, a bildungsroman. It isn't. Our narrator doesn't change and grow, despite the fantastic experiences he has. In a different novel, he's the one delivering the stirring and revelatory speech towards the end. In this, he isn't.
One of the unusual devices in Inverted World is that the point of view shifts several times, from first to third person, and back again. While several points later in the novel wouldn't work if Priest had stuck with first, it feels a little ungainly.
There were times that I wished this wasn't a hard science fiction novel, but the entire thrust of the story doesn't necessarily work without the reveal on what's happening, how, and why. I just wish there was a better way to deliver it other than an exposition dump.
Inverted World definitely works well, but I can't help but feel that there's an even better novel in here that another author (or Priest, at another point in his career) could have gotten out. Still, would recommend.
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