Inversions

Inversions (published in 1998) is a science fiction novel by Iain M. Banks which tells the story of two influential strangers within two competing societies on a world whose state of civilisation broadly resembles that of early modern Europe.

Related Topics:
1998 - Science fiction - Novel - Iain M. Banks - Europe

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Banks has written a series of novels, set in a single universe and referred to as Culture novels, and the status of Inversions in this respect seems arguable. Unlike the other two most recent novels in the series, Excession and Look To Windward, the publishers do not label the work a Culture novel on the cover. It becomes quite obvious to readers of the other Culture novels, however, that the two protagonists hail from the Culture, a vast and extremely advanced society with a predilection for interfering in the development of less sophisticated societies.

Related Topics:
Culture - Excession - Look To Windward

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Interestingly the initial hardback printing of the book contained the following brief preface:

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"A Note on the Text

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This Text, in two Parts, was discovered amongst the Papers of my late Grandfather. One Part concerns the Story of the Bodyguard to the then Protector of Tassasen, one UrLeyn, and is related, it is alleged, by a Person of his Court at the time, while the other, told by my Grandfather, tells the Story of the Woman Vosill, a Royal Physician during the Reign of King Quience, and who may, or may not, have been from the distant Archipelago of Drezen but who was, without Argument, from a different Culture. Like my much esteemed Grandfather, I have taken on the Task of making the Text I inherited more comprehensible and clear, and hope that I have succeeded in this Aim. Nevertheless, it is in a Spirit of the utmost Humility that I present it to the Society and to whomever might see fit to read it.

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