The Day Our Gravity Reversed by Paul Baxter - A Book Review

I picked this book up on my Kindle, the most excellent of reading devices, putting the book aside. Recommended by Amazon because of my buying spree on Terry Pratchett's 'Discworld' novels, I decided to try a smaple. After realising that it was really rather funny, I bought the whole book for 77p no less. I read it through with high hopes, for the first thirty pages or so that I got as a sample were pretty good. And now here I am, hoping to tell you all exactly what I thought of it without being overly too analytical.


The cover of the book. I have the eBook, so this is immaterial to me.

Susan is surprised and rather distressed when the gravity of the entire planet Earth reverses in an instant, getting rid of most of the planetwide population and stranding her in her own home. Now she's stuck with just an impulsive liar and a gullible person for company.
   Meanwhile, Bobby has his own problems. He's been rescued from his school by the government, and is now one of many people residing in the Gherkin, now a giant flying ship that rescues those in need.
  Now, both must attempt to live a new life in a world where monsters roam the deeps, writers are a danger to society and the sky is something to be feared...

An interesting idea, isn't it? What if Earth's gravity was to completely reverse? The obvious answer would be that most of the population of the Earth would be (quite literally) wiped from the face of the Earth. However, would society be able to survive?
   Those are the kinds of questions that are answered through the course of the novel 'The Day Our Gravity Reversed'. Technically a SF/Humour hybrid, I'd be more inclined to mark it down as 'humour with tidbits of mildly scientific nonsense thrown in'. Calling this book Science Fiction is like calling a builder an artist - it only works in some of the more technical senses.
   Of course, this is ignoring the humour side to the book. Generally taking the mick out of the government at every turn, it's quite entertaining to see that the two main characters are really the only sane folk around, apart from perhaps General Sam Tuiny. The Prime Minister is basically a bumbling fool with a penchant for both America and potatoes, the latter being the more important. Of course, amongst all this chaotic insanity sits the reader, making sense of it all - when possible, that is.
   Reading this book, I found myself getting frustrated at certain characters all too often. Some characters are nicely formed and sit well with the story, but there are too many complete idiots around for anything to work. I was getting fairly frustrated every time that the Prime Minister failed to comprehend what was going on, or when somebody took the impulsive liar's lies at face value, despite their paradoxical nature and lack of finesse. Unfortunately, this really devalued the book for me, and therefore my enjoyment waned.
   The scientific component of the book was near nonexistent, but still reared its head at certain points. For example, a whole five or so pages were devoted to the explanation of String Theory, that wonderful all-explaining theory that is nigh on impossible to prove. Apart from this fairly comprehensive explanation, practically nothing to do with science is mentioned, except for maybe the principles that govern the now airborne Gherkin. This lack of scientific detail sort of erases the SF component of the book, rendering it into a humourous mix of laughs and frustrations.
   I did, however, quite like how the book was set out. Each chapter was more a story in itself than part of a bigger adventure, which made it easier to stop and come back to at a later date. At the same time, it meant that the full plot of the story was sort of dissolved through the rest of the book, which at points was also annoying. Even so, if you're the kind of person who likes to break things down into smaller parts to digest them, then this is a fairly good book for you.

Hmm, how to rate this...
   I'm going to stamp on the hand that is the book attempting to get a grip on me. Although entertaining at times, and, at the start at least, thought provoking, the material presented in the story degenerated the further I read. Characters were either morally strong and steadfast or grossly overexaggerated as far as their stupidity extended. It wasn't really a very good representation of what would happen to the Earth if its gravity reversed, and didn't explore all the necessary avenues that I could see. A lack of scientific detail eliminated it from the SF genre, and the frustration caused by the so-called 'humour' really got to me.
   A four-and-a-half out of ten. Not very good.