The global invasion of the French street artist Invader started in 1998 when small Space Invader mosaics inspired by the classic game appeared in the streets of Paris. The pieces gradually increased in quantity and fame, and Invader’s works started to diversify into various media; including books, films, and paintings. And as the 10th anniversary rolled around, the artist of course celebrated this milestone. Though, how he celebrated shocked everyone, he published a book. Introducing World Invasion: Space Invader, 10th Anniversary.

Introduction

The book, a celebration of the 10th anniversary of Invader’s Global Space Invasion, documents a selection of the best invasions in each country. It includes specific details of each invasion and close-ups of some of the best invaders, accompanied by maps, essays, and bonus materials including details of arrests, close escapes, and other invasion-related paraphernalia. The most heavily invaded countries are accompanied by a written introduction by the original Invader himself.

Let’s first talk about the facts of the book to prevent confusion:

ISBN: 9781584233282, 1584233281

Page count: 240

Format: Hardcover/ paperback

Publisher: Gingko Press

Language: English

This all is sourced by the publisher.

A Curious case

In truth, this book is a bit of a mystery. As you dive deeper into the information regarding the publication, some things seem to not make sense.

You may wonder why we had to emphasize “sourced by the publisher” earlier on. This is because there is no physical nor digital copy of any pages of the interior of the book to prove the existence of this book. No one has held it, witnessed it, or even mentioned it. It's like the book never existed.

Here comes the real mystery. Google Books states the book was published in March 2009, while WorldCat said it was in 2010, and Amazon projected another date of August 2011. Invader was used as the author name for all 3 platforms, but Paul Sloman, a random author, was also mysteriously used in both Google Books and WorldCat. The interesting thing is, a simple Google search will tell you that Paul Sloman doesn’t exist, at least not as an author.

Google Books Thumbnail

Anniversary Guide?

Compared to recent Invasion Guides and miscellaneous books like 4000 or Conversation with INVADER: In Conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, this book seems to be a failed publication. The style and execution of the content and platforms the book were published on resemble the methods of the Invader team used in publication of other books. With the limited information, we suspect that there is either a limited supply of the publication on the market or the book was never released in the first place due to a failure in the printing and distribution process.

But all in all, everything is just nothing more than guesswork, as Invader has not officially said anything about this book.

Introduction

A Curious case

Anniversary Guide?