Inverted World by Christopher Priest

Inverted World (1974) by Christopher Priest is an amazing tour-de-force. As Aldous Huxley once said, the doors of perception are always open and that sense of perception is tested and tested in this science fiction novel. As you read through it and begin to understand the strange society, you will find yourself pondering how much of Plato’s allegory of the cave is manifested here. The novel is divided into five parts, told in the first person in two parts by the lead character, Helward Mann, in the third person about the lead character’s point of view in two other parts, and one part by a minor character who does not appear till near the end: Elizabeth Khan. There is a bit of a big reveal in the final part of the novel, which I will try to avoid discussing in this review. The flow through the different parts of the novel despite the changes in perception by the point of view is flawless.

As it opens, we see the world through Helward’s point of view. He is an apprentice to the Futures Guild (or being welcomed by oath and pain of death into the guild) and lives in a traveling city, Earth. The city travels on tracks and the tracks behind are constantly being lifted and placed in the front (northbound) as the city travels toward Optimum. Along the way, there are hostile primitive tribes, which the city barters with for temporary access to women for the city strangely has a low number of female births and needs the primitive women to bear children, particularly girls. This practice has caused a strong resentment among the Tooks, what the city-dwellers call the primitive tribes.

Most remarkable is that time is measured not in hours, days, or years, but in miles as in miles that the city travels, trying constantly to reach optimum. And, away from the city, time speeds up when one travels north and slows down when one travels south. Thus, one can travel for weeks and years can have passed in the city. It is a problem with time perception that Edgar Rice Burroughs once explored in his Pellucidar series with its eternal mid-day sun.

But, time is not the only twisted perception as Helward finds as he travels south, returning primitive women to their villages after they have been used for breeding. He perceives the women differently as they travel south. Their clothes become tight and don’t fit right as they travel south and eventually they are flat cardboard figures. The physics of this world makes little sense, but Helward knows only that the city must keep moving or all will be lost and optimum will be out of reach.

There are so many incredible concepts at work here, not just time and space, but all of perception and Priest expertly weaves these ideas throughout the novel until the big reveal towards the end.

Limitless

“Limitless” is Mallory Weggemann’s inspirational biography about losing the ability to use her legs as a high school student and swimming athlete. Over months of relearning how to do even the simplest things, she discovered the Paralympics and quickly went on to break world records. Years later, tragedy striking yet again, she lost function in yet another limb and had to relearn life and compete again. She is an inspirational speaker whose troubles that she has persevered through make some of our own struggles seem minor in comparison.

Appointment in Samaria

Appointment in Samarra begins with a lengthy quote from no less than death himself: “Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra. —W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM” Indeed, that becomes the story of Julian English, who flirts with death until it is all over some 72 hours later in a garage with the motor running. But, before Julian meets death in reality, he dies a social death no less devastating.

Julian and his wife Caroline English live in Gibbsville, a small town In Pennsylvania where there aren’t enough rich kids to form a baseball team, but enough grownups to form a country club. It’s 1930, not quite the Depression yet, and the exclusivity of the club is not just by financial standing as no Blacks or Jews are welcome and we get hints that there is an uneasiness about Jews moving into the better neighborhoods (it would take another forty years for such attitudes to begin to change in the real world and often those attitudes have only changed in public, not behind closed doors): “Pretty soon there would be a whole colony of Jews in the neighborhood, and the Fliegler children and all the other nice children in the neighborhood would grow up with Jewish accents.”

The town though, for those socially accepted, is the picture postcard world of domestic bliss, including shockingly marital bliss in the bedroom. “And for a little while Gibbsville knew no happier people than Luther Fliegler and his wife, Irma. Then Luther went to sleep, and Irma got up and then came back to the bedroom, stopping to look out the window before she got into bed again.”

And the Englishes were socially accepted: “Dr. English (Julian’s father) came from one of the oldest families in Gibbsville. He was of Revolutionary stock. He wore a ring with an indistinguishable crest (he took it off when he operated).”

Julian English, though, one night hobnobbing at his upper crust country club, decides he has had enough of kissing ass and commits social and career suicide. Up until then, “So far nothing terrible had occurred. Young Johnny Dibble had been caught stealing liquor from someone’s locker and was kicked in the behind. Elinor Holloway’s shoulder strap had slipped or been pulled down, momentarily revealing her left breast, which most of the young men present had seen and touched at one time or another.”

And then Julian English decided he has had enough of Harry Reilly and throws his highball in Harry’s face. Harry is a big investor in town and, for that slight, that unforgivable slight, Julian loses the business of all the Catholics in town, his wife Caroline is socially mortified, and he begins his descent from social standing by going on a bender and heading to the parking lot with the mob boss’s mistress and challenging a one-armed veteran to a fight. As Julian’s wife tells him, “What of it? You stand there and ask me what of it? Don’t you realize what that means, or are you still drunk? It just means that the whole town knows what you did, and when Harry realizes that, he’ll do anything short of murder to get even with you. And I don’t have to tell you that he won’t have to commit murder to get even with you.”

O’Hara is a great observer of society and, here, he shows us what it means, just like in Gatsby, what it means to be accepted by society and what it means to speak your mind, to have a difference of opinion, to act differently, and how quick your fall from the in-crowd can be. Moreover, all those you counted as your friends can disappear in an instant. In the real world, once you are no longer welcome in the club, you can be cast aside in a moment. Bob Dylan years later would sing: “I know the reason, that you talked behind my back
I used to be among the crowd you’re in with.”

Dune Books In Chronological Order

• The Butlerian Jihad (2002)
• The Machine Crusade (2003)
• The Battle of Corrin (2004)
• Sisterhood of Dune (2011)
• Mentats of Dune (2014)
• Navigators of Dune (2016)
• House Atreides (1999)
• House Harkonnen (2000)
• House Corrino (2001)
• The Duke of Caladan (2020)
• The Lady of Caladan (2021)
• The Heir of Caladan (2022)
• Dune (1965)
• Paul of Dune (2008)
• Dune Messiah (1969)
• The Winds of Dune (2009)
• Children of Dune (1976)
• God Emperor of Dune (1981)
• Heretics of Dune (1984)
• Chapterhouse: Dune (1985)
• Hunters of Dune (2006)
• Sandworms of Dune (2007)

Princess of Dune

Princess of Dune is the 26th Dune book, with six from Frank Herbert and twenty built on his legacy but written by his son Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson. It is one of several prequels to the original Dune novel, tracing the lives of not one, but two, princesses of Dune, Princess Irulan, coming into her own as a formidable power in the royal Corrino family and Chani, the desert girl who old become wife in all but name to Paul Atriedes. It slots in chronologically between House Corrino and Duke of Caladan. Its publication this fall 2023 is timed to coincide with the release of the latest Dune movie.

For those in love with the Dune universe, it offers more background on two characters whose backgrounds we probably never were curious about. Thus, it doesn’t answer any grand questions or puzzles. For those purists who would have preferred the series left at the original six or even the primary trilogy and many things only hinted at for our fertile imaginations to play with, it’s too late to turn back the clock. All corners of the Dine universe have been painted in as tribute to Herbert’s original vision.

Spoilers may follow.

There are four main characters in this latest entry into the Duniverse. In addition to the two princesses, we also meet Guild Starguide Serello, a failed applicant to Navigator school who now occupied an important position in the Guild and whose great grandfather’s body (a navigator) was being brought to Arrakis for the honor of the spice and Shai-Hulud. The theft of that body for Bene Tleilax experiments is a major sub-plot here as is the revenge the Guild enacted against the Tleilax and the foreshadowing of the experiments with gholas such as Duncan Idaho’s.

The other major character storyline is that of Zenha, an Imperial officer known for his skill and prowess, who resents the appointment of incompetent nobles to captaincy, and dares to ask for the hand of the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV’s eldest daughter, Irulan. Punishment for his temerity is swift and calculated when he is ordered to crush a rebellion and realizes that he was sent to fail and that thousands of his crewmen were to die as payment. Before it’s too late, he mutinies, gathers a force and heads to the Imperial planet though it’s odd that the Guild allowed it.

Shaddam and Irulan flee assassins to the safety of Dune where Chani and her siblings plot the Emperor’s death via an ill-planned plot. Thus, all the threads with these four main characters come together. And, we get major plot lines with a fourteen year old Chani and a confident Bene Gesserit trained Irulan who proves her mettle so much earlier than her appearance in the original trilogy.

Everything in the Dune universe is endlessly fascinating to fans of the franchise. Yet, the involvement of desert girl Chani in plots in the Keep in Arakeen doesn’t necessarily ring authentic and neither does the risk it poses to Liet-Kynes and his two roles, one of the royal planetologist and one of Fremen dreamer.

Ultimate Heavy Metal Guitars by Pete Brown

Ultimate Heavy Metal Guitars is a giant coffee-table type book with two pages for each of the guitarists featured, one for the history of the guitarist and his equipment and one for a full-page photo. Brown divides his book into twelve chapters, The Dawn of Heavy, Forging Metal, Rock & a hard Place, Arena Rock, Euro Crunch, Prog Power, The Headbanging 80’s, Shred, Thrash Smash & Bash, End of the Century, and Metal After the Millenium.

The Dawn of Heavy, for instance, starts with Clapton and his explanation that he had nothing to do with heavy metal. The chapter then goes on to feature Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix (who “revolutionized the sound of the actual tone of the electric solidbody guitar”), and Pete Townshend (“Louder and ruder than its contemporaries, the band cut a swath for bands that would follow”).

The “Roots of Metal” or “Forging Metal” then takes the reader to Jimmy Page, Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath), Ritchie Blackmore (Deep Purple), Leslie West (who?- a band called Mountain famous for “Mississippi Queen”), Martin Barre (of Jethro Tull), Mick Box (of Uriah Heep).

Each chapter (and this review is not going to go over each chapter) gives the reader a handful of names and historical perspective. It is a fascinating walk through rock history, both for the names we are all intimately familiar with and some we have heard on radio, but just never thought about who was leading the band. This reader found many of the chapters in the first two-thirds endlessly fascinating, but the latter names in the last half not as fascinating only because of lack of familiarity. All in all, it is an excellent book, a must-have for anyone who wants to have their own Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on their coffee table.