Infinite Ground

'Astonishing' Herald, Books of the Year

'Sublime' Irish Times, Book of the Year

'Wonderful' Guardian, Books of the Year





During a sweltering South American summer, a family convenes for dinner at a restaurant. Midway through the meal, Carlos disappears. An experienced, semi-retired inspector takes the case, but what should be a routine investigation becomes something strange, intangible, even sinister. The corporation for which Carlos worked seems to serve no purpose; the staff talk of their missing colleague's alarming, shifting physical symptoms; a forensic scientist uncovers evidence of curious abnormalities in the thriving microorganisms that shared Carlos's body. As the inspector relives and retraces the missing man's footsteps, the trail leads him away from the city sprawl and deep into the country's rainforest interior, where he encounters both horror and wonder.



Martin MacInnes lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. His debut novel, Infinite Ground (2016), won the Somerset Maugham Award. His second novel, Gathering Evidence (2020), led to his inclusion in The National Centre for Writing/British Council's list of ten writers shaping the UK's future. His third novel, In Ascension (2023), was longlisted for the Booker Prize and has been optioned for film. He is published in 10 languages, and is the winner of a Manchester Fiction Prize and a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award.



Stunning - a totally original, surreal mystery shot through with hints of the best of César Aira, Vladimir Nabokov, Angela Carter, and Julio Cortázar. Smart, clever, and honest. I doubt you've read anything quite like it.



Weird, wonderful, totally indefinable



Sublime



Astonishing



An electrifying piece of work: strange, terrifying, riveting, and written with scintillating intelligence. In its thinking about the porosity between the human and the non-human, it stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Ballard, Lem, VanderMeer, Tom McCarthy



This is the work of a most singular and inventive mind, matched by writing with real flair and clarity. It is a book alive with ideas and cock-eyed intelligence, brimming with passages of genuine brilliance. Infinite Ground does that magical thing that only the very best novels do: it makes you see the world afresh. Dazzling stuff



Strange, haunting, dislocating



Brimming with strong, startling ideas... A curious and often remarkable book



A novel of intelligence, grace, cunning and warped imagination, one that melds and sometimes clashes styles and influences to create something original and unsettling. It is a bravura performance, and one that announces Martin MacInnes as one of our most exciting new voices



Labyrinthine, beautifully written and teeming with ideas about fiction and reality that linger long in the mind... A frighteningly good debut novel