Inversions was published by Orbit in 1998. It is the Culture novel that doesn’t look like one — or doesn’t have to. The novel consists of two interleaved narratives set on the same pre-industrial world, narrated in a style appropriate to that world’s literary conventions rather than in Banks’s usual far-future register.
In one strand, Doctor Vosill serves as personal physician to King Quience, a reforming monarch beset by feudal enemies. She has knowledge and abilities far beyond what her society possesses. In the other strand, DeWar is the chief bodyguard to General UrLeyn, the Protector (dictator) of a neighboring country. He is uncannily skilled.
Neither narrative explicitly mentions the Culture. The science fiction is entirely in implication: the careful reader recognizes that Vosill is almost certainly a Culture agent on a covert intervention mission (Special Circumstances), and that DeWar may be another — or may be from a different advanced civilization. The novel rewards rereading after familiarity with the Culture series, but also works as a standalone pair of political fables.
Collecting Inversions
First edition (Orbit, London, 1998): Boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine in jacket: $40–$100
- Signed first: $120–$250