In successive versions of the story, the group comes to blows but nevertheless gets closer and closer to setting foot inside the vast structure.

So the crew of Demeter realize they are not the first to reach the Edifice after all, and anger centers on Topolsky, who has concealed the previous expedition from everyone else. The excitement for the expedition’s leaders in finding the Edifice is shattered, in each version of the expedition, by discovery of a wrecked vessel, the Europa, and its dead crew members. Her role keeps changing in the different versions of Demeter’s search for the Edifice, but she always has a disquieting effect on Coade as she tries to puncture his calm and empathetic manner. The friendship that develops between the two is one of the high points of the novel, as is the conflicted relationship between Coade and the sharp-tongued Ada Cossile. His security guard is a Coronel Ramos who receives a head wound, which changes somewhat in each version of the story, but he always survives thanks to Dr. The expedition, in its various permutations, is the brainchild of the wealthy and ruthless Topolsky who hopes to make a fortune through the discovery of the Edifice and unearthing its treasures. His literally feverish preoccupation with solving this topological problem drives him to the point of fever and near death. The attempt to work out the mathematics of this massive shape, and hence the ability to navigate its intricacies, is the obsession of the young mathematician, Raymond Dupin. But one of the mysteries at the heart of it is the nature of the Edifice, whose indefinable shape seems to be a partial turning inside out (eversion). It’s hard to say much more about the story without giving away its many surprises. Only Silas begins to piece together the resemblances from one version of events to the next, but he has just a few flashes of memory. In each version of the story, there is also the common search for a strange and enormous structure, referred to as the Edifice, hidden away, either within a barely navigable inlet or deep within a huge cavern far below the surface.

Coade, each of which reflects the linguistic style of the era he’s experiencing. The time and technologies shift in each case, but we always encounter the same set of characters in a series of narrations by Dr.

Eversion by Alastair Reynolds