Originally published: London: Orbit, 1998.
An engrossing portrait of an alien world and two very different people bound by a startling and mysterious secret from the internationally bestselling author of The Player of Games and Consider Phlebas Iain M. Banks.
On a backward world with six moons, an alert spy reports on the doings of one Dr. Vosill, who has mysteriously become the personal physician to the king despite being a foreigner and, even more unthinkably, a woman. Vosill has more enemies than she first realizes. But she also has more remedies in hand than those who wish ill can ever guess.
Elsewhere, in another palace across the mountains, a man named DeWar serves as chief bodyguard to the Protector General of Tassasen, a profession he describes as the business of "assassinating assassins." DeWar, too, has his enemies, but his foes strike more swiftly, and his means of combating them are more direct.
No one trusts the doctor, and the bodyguard trusts no one, but is there a hidden commonality linking their disparate histories? Spiraling around a central core of mystery, deceit, love, and betrayal, Inversions is a dazzling work of science fiction from "a talent to be reckoned with" (Locus Magazine) at the height of his remarkable powers.
Locus A talent to be reckoned with.
Los Angeles Times Banks never does the same thing twice. But he always does it sublimely.
SFX Iain Banks is a tricky fellow. Watch carefully as he assures you there's nothing up his sleeve.
The Detroit News A genuine and original talent.
Vernor Vinge author of A Fire Upon the Deep Inversions is a magical interplay of viewpoint and simplicity. At different levels we find the romance of medieval royalty, the horrors that lie below it, and the prospect of a civilization transforming itself into something marvelously better.
William Gibson author of Neuromancer Banks is a phenomenon. Wildly successful, fearlessly creative!
Iain M. Banks (1954-2013), one of the United Kingdom's most popular science fiction authors, wrote such highly regarded novels as Consider Phlebas, Excession, and Inversions. Under the name "Iain Banks," he also published mainstream fiction, including such novels as The Wasp Factory and A Song of Stone.
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