RIP Christopher Priest

News has sadly broken that Christopher Priest, one of British SFF's most inventive and confounding authors, has passed away at the age of 80.

Born in Cheadle, Cheshire in 1943, Priest had various jobs as a young man, including an accountant and audit clerk. He discovered an enjoyment of writing at school, and began penning fiction shortly after leaving school. His first story he was happy to have published was "Going Native" (1963), although his first work to actually see print was "The Run" (1966, in Impulse). Priest began publishing short fiction prolifically and became a familiar figure on the nascent British SFF fandom scene.

In 1968 he was able to become a full-time writer and published his first novel, Indoctrinaire, in 1970, in which an Arctic researcher is kidnapped and taken to a location in Brazil subject to bizarre timeslips. Whether the SFF elements in the story are real or a product of the character's mind is a recurring theme in Priest's work. Fugue for a Darkening Island (1972) achieved a higher profile with a timely (then as now) story about a near-future Britain whose politics are pushed to the extreme by an influx of refugees from an Africa scarred by war.

The Inverted World (1974) is arguably Priest's most overtly science fictional novel, featuring the City Earth, a massive machine-city rumbling constantly across a hyperboloid world. The book won Priest his first BSFA Award, although in later years he seemed to regard its overt SF-ness with amusement, and wrote a satirical sequel short story with the memorable title "The Making of the Lesbian Horse" (1979).

The next phase of Priest's career saw him predicting the rise of major new subgenres. The Space Machine (1976) ambitiously combines the events of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine and War of the Worlds into a single universe and acts as a sequel to both, with Wells himself playing a role in the narrative. The novel has a decidedly steampunk feel, some years before that subgenre became more widespread. His subsequent novel, A Dream of Wessex (1977), deals with human-machine brain interfaces and virtual reality, and was subsequently cast in the nascent cyberpunk genre, which had already been given great impetus by Priest's fellow Brit John Brunner (after early work in this mode by Philip K. Dick) and would later explode again in the United States in the mid-1980s.

In 1974 Priest penned "An Infinite Summer" as a commission for Harlan Ellison's anthology The Last Dangerous Visions, his third massive, genre-spanning anthology work. After repeated failures on Ellison's part to communicate the status of the collection or the story, Priest withdrew the story. The story became Priest's most seismic work for two reasons. The first is that that setting - a beautiful but mysterious world called the Dream Archipelago - inspired him, unusually, to write four stories set in the same milieu. These were later collected as An Infinite Summer (1979). Priest revisited the setting through his career, becoming the closest thing he had to a signature series.

The second is that Priest felt his treatment by Ellison had been unprofessional, and as he consulted other writers whose stories had vanished in the black hole of The Last Dangerous Visions, he realised some had been treated far worse than he had. He embarked on a journalistic investigation of the situation, publishing the results as "The Last Deadloss Visions" in 1987. Ellison initially reacted with bonhomie, comparing himself to Michelangelo completing the Sistine Chapel whilst "an angry Priest rants below," but his amusement was short-lived. His predictably explosive reactions as the situation continued did not deter Priest from covering the story further in new editions of the work, and in 1994 expanded this to a full volume, The Book on the Edge of Forever, which was nominated for a Hugo Award. Allegedly, Ellison would spend some time going around dealers' rooms at conventions and threatening anyone stocking the book with legal action or trying to have them thrown out.

Priest returned to novel-length work with The Affirmation (1981), one of several contenders for the title of his best novel. The novel is also partially set in the Dream Archipelago, but sees the protagonist slipping between that milieu and life in contemporary London, with the fantastic events bleeding over into the mundane and the reader left unsure about what is happening. In one of Priest's boldest moves, the novel has a looping narrative that ends where it begins, which allows the novel to be immediately reread as its own sequel. The book won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.

The Glamour (1984), a spin on the invisibility trope, marks a return to a more conventional narrative, although as always this is only relative to Priest's own extremes. The Quiet Woman (1990) revisits the idea of Britain collapsing into a dystopia, with the southern countries becoming contaminated by radiation.

Not for the last time in his career, Priest undertook a career hiatus, but returned in 1995 with his best-known, most accessible and approachable novel. The Prestige is a story of warring magicians in 19th Century England which feels pretty conventional, although engrossing, until its conclusion, when Priest undertakes one of his finest finales. The novel won the World Fantasy Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was nominated for both a Clarke and BSFA award. It's non-appearance at the Hugos remains bewildering. The novel is the only one of Priest's works to be filmed, by no less than Christopher Nolan and staring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Scarlett Johansson and David Bowie. The Prestige is a fine film, though perhaps a tad less accomplished than the novel.

The Extremes (1998) was something of a thematic sequel to A Dream of Wessex, dealing with virtual reality, but Priest also examines the notion of what he calls "spree violence," manifesting as explosive outbursts of violence by hitherto apparently sane individuals. In 1999 he collected various short fiction as The Dream Archipelago, something of a thematic follow-up to the earlier An Infinite Summer (whose stories it also contains).

In 2002 he returned to fiction with The Separation, another contender for his best novel. The book deals heavily with duality, as identical twins take on different roles in World War II, one as an ambulance driver and the other as a bomber pilot, with a framing device set in the present day. The book is possibly Priest's most ambitious and brain-melting, and defies easy summary.

The Separation also apparently did poorly in sales, with low print runs. Priest did not publish another novel for nine years, leading to speculation of an unofficial retirement.

However, when Priest did return, it was in force. The Islanders (2011) is a confident return to the Dream Archipelago, tying in with his earlier The Affirmation but also acting a travelogue narrative somewhere between novel, gazetteer and story collection. The Adjacent (2013) is a mystery-SF novel about a mysterious weapon that kills thousands of people in an apparent terrorist attack on contemporary Britain, but also ties in with events during World War I and II, including stage magicians aircraft pilots and the Dream Archipelago. In that sense it feels a bit like "Priest's Greatest Hits" assembled as a single novel.

The Gradual (2016) and The Evidence (2020) both revisit the Dream Archipelago more directly, with a musician touring the islands experiencing temporal dislocation and, in the latter a crime novelist who finds his sojourn on one of the islands somehow embroils him in a murder that took place many years in the past.

Inbetween he wrote An American Story (2018), perhaps his weakest work, which explores how conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11 emerged. Priest's novels have often challenged orthodoxy, so his examination of why people believe counter-narratives in an absence of proof is interesting, but not especially revelatory.

Expect Me Tomorrow (2022) returns to a favourite theme of twins, this time with two sets of twins in the 19th Century and the late 21st Century. The advent of an ability to communicate across time leads to intriguing ideas.

Priest's final novel is now Airside (2023), in which a film critic goes in search of a missing movie star amidst the infinitely-recessing perspectives of modern airports. Unusually, Priest includes his influences and inspirations for the novel, including the film La Jetée (1962).

In addition to the fiction penned under his own name, Priest wrote media tie-ins under a variety of pen names: he has only admitted to the 1986 novelisations of the films Short Circuit and Mona Lisa, and eXistenZ in 1999 which he penned under his own name after finding the premise intriguing (although the finished film underwhelmed). How many more stealthily Priest-penned novelisations are out there is unknown, but intriguing.

Priest wrote novels and stories that were accessible - his prose was always smooth and engrossing - but completely confounding in their approach to genre, their linearity and if the events were even really happening. Priest's friend and occasional collaborator David Langford dubbed this "The Priest Effect," the moment in a Priest novel when the reader "gets it," either what's going on or at least grasps the strand that things are not as they seem and the floor of the narrative is dropping away beneath their feet. Arguably Priest could over-indulge with this; its notable that his best-regarded novels are those which anchor the narrative on firmer ground and keep their powder dry, deploying the Effect at just the right time and with restraint, to the achieve the greatest impact. For that reason, and its very fine film adaptation, The Prestige will likely emerge as Priest's most enduring work. But all of his nineteen novels are at least interesting and thought-provoking. 

The fact that Priest also managed to pass away shortly before the actually-for-real-this-time, posthumous publication of The Last Dangerous Visions may be a sign that the universe is not entirely without a sense of cosmic irony. "An Infinite Summer" will not be among its contents.

Priest is survived by two children and his long-term partner. One of Britain's most fascinating, enduring SFF talents, working at the outer edges of the genre and occasionally reporting back, he will be missed.

Novels

• Indoctrinaire (1970)
• Fugue for a Darkening Island (1972)
• The Inverted World (1974)
• The Space Machine (1976)
• A Dream of Wessex (1977)
• The Affirmation (1981)
• The Glamour (1984)
• Short Circuit (1986, as Colin Wedgelock)
• Mona Lisa (1986, as John Luther Novak)
• The Quiet Woman (1990)
• The Prestige (1995)
• The Extremes (1998)
• eXistenZ (1999)
• The Separation (2002)
• The Islanders (2011)
• The Adjacent (2013)
• The Gradual (2016)
• An American Story (2018)
• The Evidence (2020)
• Expect Me Tomorrow (2022)
• Airside (2023)

Short Story Collections

• Real-Time World (1975)
• An Infinite Summer (1979)
• The Dream Archipelago (1999)
• Ersatz Wines (2008)
• Episodes (2019)

Cover art: THE GRADUAL by Christopher Priest

Gollancz have released the cover art for Christopher Priest's new novel, The Gradual.

The book will be publiushed on 15 September 2016. A description follows:

In this latest novel from one of the UK’s greatest writers we return to the Dream Archipelago, a string of islands that no one can map or explain. Alesandro Sussken is a composer, and we see his life as he grows up in a fascist state constantly at war with another equally faceless opponent. His brother is sent off to fight; his family is destroyed by grief. Occasionally Alesandro catches glimpses of islands in the far distance from the shore, and they feed into his music – music for which he is feted. But all knowledge of the other islands is forbidden by the junta, until he is unexpectedly sent on a cultural tour. And what he discovers on his journey will change his perceptions of his country, his music and the ways of the islands themselves.

Christopher Priest announces a new novel

Christopher Priest has taken to his blog to confirm the completion of a new novel, The Gradual.
 

According to Priest, this novel breaks with the tradition of his last few books by having a reliable narrator and a linear storyline told in sequence. Priest's last few novels - The Separation, The Islanders and The Adjacent - have all featured non-linear storytelling, unreliable (or mad) narrators and shifting perspectives and realities.

This is interesting news, as Priest had previously said his next novel would be called The Mariners. Whether this is the same book with a new title, or a different work that cropped up, is unclear. Hopefully, we will see The Gradual on shelves in 2016.

The Adjacent by Christopher Priest

A century or more in the future, Melanie Tarent is killed in a terrorist attack in Turkey by a frightening new weapon. The only trace the weapon leaves behind is a triangular scorch mark on the ground. Her husband, Tibor, returns home to Britain and learns that the same weapon has been deployed on a larger scale in London, leaving a hundred thousand people dead. There appears to be a connection to something in Tibor's past, something he has no memory of.

The events in Tibor's life have ramifications across the years. During WWI a stage magician is sent to the Western Front to help make British reconnaissance aircraft invisible to the enemy and has a chance meeting with one of the most famous writers alive. During WWII a young RAF technician meets a female Polish pilot and learns of her desperate desire to return home and be reunited with her missing lover. And in the English countryside of the near future, a scientist creates the first adjacency, and transforms the world.


Reviewing a Christopher Priest novel is like trying to take a photograph of a car speeding past you at 100mph without any warning. You are, at the very best, only going to capture an indistinct and vague image of what the object is. Photography, perspective and points of view play a major role in Priest's latest novel, as do some of his more familiar subjects: stage magic, WWII aircraft and the bizarre world of the Dream Archipelago. The Adjacent is a mix of the familiar and the strange, the real and the unreal, the lucid and the dreamlike. It's the novel as a puzzle, as so many of Priest's books are, except that Priest hasn't necessarily given you all the pieces to the same puzzle.

The book unfolds in stages, draped on the skeleton of Tibor's adventures (for lack of a better term) in the Islamic Republic of Great Britain. The normal eye-rolling which accompanies any suggestion that Britain could ever become such is mediated here by knowing some of Priest's narrative tricks. This is a future, not the future, and it is possible that it may not be the future of our world but another where history has unfolded differently. From this linking narrative we move back to the First World War, forwards to the Second, sideways to one of the islands of the Dream Archipelago and, in the middle of it all, a short interlude in an English scientist's garden which may hold the key to the whole thing. The book's ending is revelatory, but only in the sense that you can now see the destination, not necessarily that you understand how you got there. As is also traditional with Priest's books, a full and richer understanding of the text will have to wait for re-reads. That said, Priest does play fair: by the end of the first read you should be starting to get a handle on what's going on.

Of course, the novel's satisfaction as a puzzle and an impressive work of intellect would be nothing without Priest's formidable skills with prose, character, detail and atmosphere. His research is put to good use, with the historical settings of the First and Second World Wars evoked to good effect. The future world he paints is convincing as well as disturbing. His central characters - many of whom seem to be doubles or reflections of one another - are convincing and detailed, with their growing frustration as events become more bizarre and inexplicable well-depicted. It also helps that all of the puzzles and mysteries surround that simplest and most traditional of narratives: a love story.

If The Adjacent has a weakness, it's that it's a novel that, whilst readable by itself, will especially reward those already familiar with Priest's work. In particular, the sideways trip to the Dream Archipelago will likely completely confuse those not familiar with it, but readers of The Dream Archipelago, The Affirmation and The Islanders will be able to nod sagely and think that they are 'in' on what Priest is doing (or at least they can kid themselves they are). The Adjacent feels like a culmination of the ideas and tropes Priest has been exploring since at least The Affirmation was published thirty years ago, and is thoroughly rewarding on that basis. Newcomers unversed in the 'Priest Effect' (a term coined by David Langford to describe Priest's way of writing) may find some of the ideas in the book more impenetrable.

The Adjacent (*****) is puzzling, brilliant, frustrating, page-turning, disturbing and absorbing. It is traditional Priest. The novel will be published on 20 June in the UK and USA.

Cover art for Christopher Priest's THE ADJACENT

Given that waits for a new Christopher Priest novel are often measured in half-decades (or, in the case of the last one, a full decade), it feels like we're being spoiled with a new book so soon after his previous one. The Adjacent will be published in June 2013 and now has some cover art:

Priest calls this the longest and most complicated book he's ever written, which coming from the author of The Affirmation and The Separation is saying something.

The Islanders by Christopher Priest

The Dream Archipelago is a vast string of thousands of islands, wrapping themselves around the world between two great continents. Some of them are deserts, some are home to great cities and others have been riddled with tunnels and turned into gigantic musical instruments. The Islanders is a gazetteer to the islands...and a murder story. It's also a musing on the nature of art and the artists who make it.


The Islanders is Christopher Priest's first novel in almost a decade, a fact which itself makes it one of the most interesting books to be released this year. His previous novel, The Separation, a stimulating and layered book about alternate versions of WWII, was one of the very finest novels of the 2000s. True to expectations, Priest has returned with a fiercely intelligent book that works on multiple different levels and which rewards close, thoughtful reading.

The Islanders initially appears to be a travel gazetteer, a Lonely Planet guide to a place that doesn't exist. Several islands are presented with geographic information, notes on places of interest and thoughts on locations to visit. Then we get entries which are short stories (sometimes only tangentially involving the island the entry is named after), or exchanges of correspondence between people on different islands. One entry is a succession of court and police documents revolving around a murder, followed by an extract from a much-later-published book that exonerates the murderer. Later entries in the book seem to clarify what really happened in this case, but in the process open up more questions than are answered. Oh, a key figure the gazetteer references frequently is revealed to be dead, despite him having produced an introduction to the book (apparently after reading it). Maybe he faked his death. Or this is a newer edition with the old introduction left intact. Or something else has happened.

The Islanders defies easy categorisation. It's not a novel in the traditional sense but it has an over-arcing storyline. It isn't a collection of short stories either, though it does contain several distinct and self-contained narratives. It isn't a companion or guidebook, though readers of Priest's earlier novel The Affirmation or short story collection The Dream Archipelago will find rewards in using it as such. It is hugely metafictional in that themes, tropes and ideas that Priest has been working on for years recur and are explored: doppelgangers, twins, conflicted memories, magicians, performance art and shifting realities feature and are referenced. At several points Priest seems to be commenting about his own works rather than the imaginary ones written by a protagonist...until one of those books turns out to be called The Affirmation, the same title as one of Priest's earlier, best novels. A character's suggestion that a work be split into four sections and then experienced in reverse order may be a clue as to how the novel should be read...but may be a red herring. Several key moments of wry humour (The Islanders is probably Priest's funniest book) suggest that we shouldn't be taking the endeavour seriously. Moments of dark, psychological horror suggest we should.

The novel embraces its gazetteer format. References to another island in an entry may be a clue that a vital piece of information can be found in the corresponding chapter about the other island. Sometimes this is the case, sometimes it isn't. Recurring names (some of them possibly aliases) and references to tunnels and havens provide links that bind the book together. The strangest chapter appears to be divorced from the rest of the book altogether, but subtle clues suggest curious relationships with the rest of the book and indeed with other of Priest's works (though foreknowledge of these is not required). The interlinking tapestry of references, names and events forms a puzzle that the reader is invited to try to piece together, except that the pieces don't always fit together and indeed, some appear to be missing altogether.

The Islanders (*****) is a weird book. It's also funny, warm and smart. It's also cold, alienating and dark. It's certainly self-contradictory. The only thing I can say with certainty about it is that it is about islands and the people who live on them, and if there is a better, more thought-provoking and rewarding novel published this year I will be surprised. The book is available now in the UK and on import in the USA.

Christopher Priest reveals new projects

In an interview with SFFWorld, Christopher Priest discusses some of the projects he's working on at the moment. He's currently finishing off his next novel, The Adjacent, and has plans for a further novel after that, The Mariners, as well as a stage play. In the meantime, his next novel, The Islanders, will be published in the UK at the end of the month by Gollancz in the UK.


Some interesting stuff in the interview, such as how his lengthy break from writing after The Separation has resulted in a sudden explosion of new ideas and projects. Also interesting is that Priest seems to have cooled somewhat on Chris Nolan's adaptation of The Prestige and his subsequent projects, with some interesting discussion of why that may be so.

The Islanders remains my most eagerly-awaited book of 2011, and the news we won't have to wait ten years for his next novel is very welcome indeed.

Famous for the wrong book?

The Guardian has an interesting topic asking if novelists' most famous works are their best. Their list examines literary fiction, so I thought it would be interesting to look at the SFF field.


Stephen Donaldson
Most famous work: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever.
Best work: The Gap Series.

Stephen Donaldson became one of the founders of the modern epic fantasy movement in 1977 with Lord Foul's Bane, the first in his Chronicles of Thomas Covenant series (originally a trilogy but now nine books, with one more to come). It's his biggest-selling and most famous work, and certainly a laudable attempt to bring more adult and literary techniques to bear on the subgenre, but for me it's outclassed by The Gap Series. The Gap starts with a short, lyrical novella about perspective and truth before suddenly exploding into a colossal SF reworking of Wagner's Ring Cycle, filled with complex clashes of characters and cultures and delicious political intrigue. The best thing Donaldson's written. No-one bought it though, hence the return to the Covenant books.


Arthur C. Clarke
Most famous work: 2001: A Space Odyssey
Best work: Childhood's End

Thanks to the era-defining movie version, 2001 is easily Arthur C. Clarke's best-known work. However, the novel is actually among his less impressive books, rich in atmosphere but lacking in overall incident. In fact, purely on a novel basis, I'd rate its sequel 2010: Odyssey Two as being a much stronger book. Childhood's End, on the other hand, is for its day visionary, transcendent and mind-blowing, with a stunning finale marking the end of the human race (or rather our current stage of existence) and doing so in an unforgettable way.


Isaac Asimov
Most famous work: The Robots/Foundation universe
Best work: Nightfall

Picking out Asimov's most famous work would have probably involved some elaborate Twitter polling on whether I, Robot or Foundation was up there, but fortunately Asimov solved this problem by, somewhat unconvincingly, retconning them into the same universe. However, for me his strongest work is the short story Nightfall, in which some scientists on a planet with six suns in its sky discover that for the first time in recorded history there's going to be an eclipse with only one sun visible, meaning that for the first time in thousands of years, night will fall. A simple story based on a rudimentary scientific premise with tremendous ramifications for society and the individual people involved. Terrific and, rather unlike the 15-book Robots/Foundation/Empire universe, straight to the point. The novel version (with Robert Silverberg) is interesting but lacks the short story's punch.


Paul Kearney
Most famous work: The Monarchies of God
Best work: A Different Kingdom

Possibly a bit of a stretch, given that Paul Kearney is still chronically under-read and even the splendid Monarchies of God fantasy series is still reasonably obscure (though now rising, with the recent reissuing of the series in two omnibus volumes). However, when people talk about Kearney, it's his epic fantasy series which are always mentioned (Monarchies, Sea-Beggars and the current Macht trilogy). His finest work for me is A Different Kingdom, which starts out as a semi-autobiographical novel about growing up in rural Northern Ireland before fantastical events start taking place. The protagonist finds himself drawn into the woods neighbouring his farm, and finds a different world waiting. Rich and mythic, A Different Kingdom can be summed up as an Irish Mythago Wood, whilst also being totally different to Holdstock's masterwork. Overdue a re-release.



Christopher Priest
Most famous work: The Prestige
Best work: The Separation

Thanks to Chris Nolan, Priest's very fine novel about battling 19th Century magicians is now quite well-known. However, for me his finest novel remains his most recent, The Separation. Almost killed at birth by uncaring publishers, the book was rescued by Gollancz and is a staggering achievement. A pair of twins become embroiled in the Second World War, but not necessarily the war we are familiar with. With dizzying shifts in perspective and constant evolution of the backstory, the book is mind-blowing and will invite constant re-reads and analyses to tease out its secrets.


George R.R. Martin
Most famous work: A Game of Thrones
Best work: Fevre Dream

After HBO's great adaptation of A Game of Thrones, it's easily currently Martin's best-known work. But it's not his best. In the context of A Song of Ice and Fire itself, my favourite piece of writing is The Hedge Knight, the novella set 90 years before the novels and introducing the adventures of Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, which uses Westeros' rich backdrop for a much simpler, much more concise story than the expansive novels. However, even beyond that, Martin's 1982 horror novel Fevre Dream has something going for it his fantasies don't (so far): an ending. Martin's story about vampires on the Mississippi trying to develop a drug to wean them off blood is dark, gripping, rich in atmosphere and tragic. Someone needs to make the movie (and cast Ron 'Rodrik Cassel' Donachie as Abner Marsh!) yesterday. And resist the urge to turn it into a True Blood prequel.


Tad Williams
Most famous work: Memory, Sorrow and Thorn
Best work: Otherland

Tad Williams exploded onto the scene with his Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy in the late 1980s, which was hugely influential and set the scene for many of the authors who followed. Whilst overall a fine work, the trilogy skews very much to the traditional and has a somewhat annoying ending. Otherland, on the other hand, is much more original, being a cyberpunk-fantasy crossbreed. Williams uses the SF backdrop to explore a lot of excellent and fantastical ideas. Whilst the saga is still too long, its episodic structure makes it fun to read and the premise makes for a rich vein of story ideas which could sustain entire series (the reverse-Aztec invasion of Spain is particularly interesting). Overall, a strong series which has now spawned an MMORPG and a particularly large fanbase in Germany.

Any other thoughts and suggestions? On Twitter I've already had Gene Wolfe nominated, for Soldier of the Mist over The Book of the New Sun.

New cover art for Christopher Priest's THE ISLANDERS

Gollancz have sent me a new working image for the cover of Christopher Priest's long-awaited new novel, The Islanders, due out in the autumn:


Intriguing, and retro. Reminds me of those old Pan paperbacks from the 1980s with the crisp white spines and the multi-coloured 3D images that look like they've come off an Archimedes computer. I like the clean lines of it, very cool. Interesting to see how it changes between now and publication.

New book covers from Gollancz

Some new cover art for your consideration:


The Islanders by Christopher Priest, his first novel since 2002's brilliant The Separation, is my most eagerly-anticipated novel of the year (yes, including ADWD). It's due in September.


The UK cover for Brandon Sanderson's Warbreaker, due in December.


The cover for Alastair Reynolds' Blue Remembered Earth, due in January 2012.

In all cases this is work-in-progress which may be subject to change before release.

Christopher Priest completes new novel

Christopher Priest has turned in the manuscript for his new novel, The Islanders. This is his first book since the 2002 masterpiece The Separation, my favourite novel from the entire decade.


The novel currently has an October 2011 release date from Gollancz, although that is likely tentative at this early stage.

The Prestige

At the end of the 19th Century, two stage magicians working in London become bitter rivals: Robert Angier (played by Hugh Jackman), performing under the name 'The Great Danton', and Alfred Borden (played by Christian Bale), known as 'The Professor'. They each seek to upstage the other, and when Borden develops a seemingly impossible trick that has him apparently teleporting across the stage in a second, Angier becomes obsessed with finding out how he did it, an obsession that leads him to Colorado and a meeting with a man named Nikola Tesla...


The Prestige, released in 2006, is an adaptation of the excellent Christopher Priest novel of the same name, directed by Christopher Nolan of Memento and Batman Begins fame (his subsequent project to this movie would be The Dark Knight) and sharing several cast and crew with the comic book movies, including Christian Bale and Michael Caine. The Prestige is a superb film which may actually be the finest translation of a work of literature to the screen that I've ever seen. The film is incredibly faithful to the themes and spirit of the novel, but not slavishly so. Ideas from the book that would not work well on-screen have been jettisoned, whilst the novel's modern-day framing device has been removed and replaced with a new one that focuses the story much more closely on the rivalry between Borden and Angier. At the same time, the novel's conceit of taking place entirely through the pages of the two men's diaries is actually translated successfully to the screen, and the changes made to the central twist of the novel actually make the idea even more disturbing and horrific than in the novel. As with the novel, upon finishing the film the viewer may be tempted to immediately watch it again in full knowledge of the secrets revealed at the end, whereupon it turns into a different movie.

The film's success is built around its two protagonists. Bale and Jackman turn in supremely accomplished performances (the latter possibly in a career-best performance), each having to play a complex, driven character each of whom is carrying weighty secrets and mysteries. Their escalating rivalry is particularly well-handled. Some may feel that the two characters are too obsessed with their rivalry and we don't see many other facets of their personalities, but given that the entire movie is driven by their rivalry, this is understandable. The supporting cast is also excellent, particularly Michael Caine as Angier's assistant, Cutter, Scarlett Johansson as Olivia and the curiously effective partnership of David Bowie (yes, that David Bowie) as Tesla and Andy Serkis as his helper, Alley. In fact, it feels like there's a whole other movie Nolan could go and make about Nikola Tesla that would be as fascinating to watch.

Nolan's direction, having to handle a complex, non-linear narrative and not lose the audience in confusion, is very good. At one point Olivia tells us that once you know the secret of the trick, it becomes rather obvious, and the film is like that. Rewatching the movie, it's almost incredible that you missed all the (in retrospect, obvious) clues pointing to what the truth of the story is. This is where the real success of the movie lies. Most of Priest's novels have a moment which is known as the 'Priest Effect', where the reader feels a trapdoor has opened beneath their feet and they realise everything they thought they knew was not only wrong, but perhaps never existed in the first place. The idea that this could be translated to cinema seems unthinkable, but Nolan delivers it here with considerable success. This is a movie where the rules are fluid and shift, but once you know what is going on, it all makes sense.

The Prestige (*****) is a most accomplished film, well-paced and dramatic, with a tremendous sense of mystery. It is a puzzle box of a story where all the pieces fit together satisfyingly at the end, and rewards repeated viewing. It is available on DVD (UK, USA) and Blu-Ray (UK, USA).

A Dream of Wessex by Christopher Priest

Julia Stretton is a researcher for the Ridpath projection, a machine that has generated a completely convincing simulation of what the world may look like in the early 22nd Century. In the projection, the south-west of England has broken away from the rest of the island of Britain due to an earthquake and has become something of a holiday resort, tolerated by a communist government in London for the sake of international relations. In this vision of the future Julia finds herself drawn to a man named David for reasons she doesn't quite understand, but in the real world the arrival of her ex-lover on the project's staff causes chaos for Julia and the project...


A Dream of Wessex was originally published in 1977 and was Christopher Priest's fifth novel, following up on the extremely well-received An Inverted World and The Space Machine. Like many of Priest's books, it contains musings on memory, identity, consciousness and reality. The book also describes what looks suspiciously like a prophetic virtual reality cyberspace simulation some years ahead of such things becoming fashionable thanks to cyberpunk.

The novel features Priest's traditional narrative hallmark, namely being written in clear and readable prose through which the author laces several narrative and thematic time bombs that explode in the reader's face at key points (dubbed 'The Priest Effect' by David Langford), including several hours after you finish the book when you suddenly go, "Hang on, does that mean..." and you have to go scurrying back to re-read half the book to confirm your suspicions. Characterisation is excellent, with Julia an interesting protagonist who spends part of the book in fear of her ex-lover, but eventually coming to terms on how to deal with him through internal reasoning rather than a more obvious and melodramatic external form (beating him up or having some big speech, for example). As usual with Priest, what he doesn't say about the characters can be as important as what he does say, leaving the reader with some intriguing interpretive work to do.


However, it's the incredible ending that will sit for the longest in the reader's mind. It maybe isn't as completely mind-blowing as The Separation's conclusion or as deeply haunting and unsettling as The Prestige's, but it's still astonishingly well-written and haunting.

A Dream of Wessex (*****) is a very strong work of science fiction, powerful and thought-provoking and the work of an imaginative author at the height of his powers. What's even more startling is that it isn't even Priest's strongest work. The book is not in print at the moment, although some older copies can be found on Amazon UK and USA.

Wertzone Classics: The Affirmation by Christopher Priest

The Affirmation is the eighth novel by British SF author Christopher Priest, originally published in 1981. As with his later novels The Prestige and moreso The Separation, The Affirmation is a book about identity, truth, perception and perspective which rewards multiple readings and is open to many interpretations of what is happening.


A 29-year-old man named Peter Sinclair is tormented by the death of his father, an unhappy relationship with a woman named Gracia and the loss of his job in London. Offered an opportunity to fix up the dilapidated country house of a friend of his late father's, he jumps at the chance. Whilst performing this job he becomes obsessed with the idea of writing his autobiography and defining his life through words. But, anxious to protect the identities of real people, he changes their names, then the names of the places they live, then the very nature of the world they exist in.

But that may be a lie.

A 31-year-old man named Peter Sinclair is living in the city of Jethra, part of the great nation of Faiandland. Unexpectedly, he wins the Lotterie-Collago. The prize is a course of treatment given on the distant southern island of Collago, which grants the recipient immortality but only at the price of total amnesia. On his way through the islands he meets and falls in love with a woman named Seri, but is occasionally haunted by thoughts of a manuscript he wrote two years ago, the story of his life with some of the names and places changed.

That may also be a lie.

The Affirmation utterly defies any attempt to summarise it. It is a twisting and at times bewildering novel that moves between at least three different levels of reality, and each of those is open to multiple interpretations. Peter is really a native of a different, although similar, world and our planet and everything on it is a figment of his imagination. Peter is really a Londoner suffering a total mental collapse in the wake of personal tragedy. He is suffering from amnesia, or schizophrenia, or an acute solipsist, or all three. The manuscripts are real, or only exist in his head. The manuscript he is writing is the actual novel itself, forming a Mobius strip of narrative and causality that loops back in on itself: when you reach the end of the novel, which literally finishes in mid-sentence, you can go back to the start and re-read it as its own sequel, with greater understanding.

Priest does his usual thing here of using a clean, easily readable prose style which lures the reader into a false sense of security until the story's second level of interpretation and reality kicks in, leaving the reader confused as to what is happening. And just when you adjust for that, something else happens that hints at a grander but stranger truth yet. The Affirmation is a puzzle, but not necessarily a puzzle with a single solution, which makes it a fiendishly addictive read.

The Affirmation (*****) is one of the most original and mind-blowing books I have read, somehow even eclipsing The Separation in what it asks from the reader and the possible answers it gives out. The novel is available in the UK from Gollancz and in the USA from Pocket Books. The latter is out of print, but Amazon.com still has some copies available.

Wertzone Classics: The Separation by Christopher Priest

The Separation is the eleventh and most recent novel by British SF author Christopher Priest, published in 2002 when it promptly won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the BSFA Best Novel Award and the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire. For reasons that remain unknown, the British publishers tried to kill the book at birth, releasing it with a minimum of fanfare and remaindering it as soon as humanly possible. Luckily, Gollancz saved the book and released it in a handsome paperback edition in 2004, where as part of their Priest reprint range it has remained in-print and with increasing critical acclaim ever since.

The Prestige is regarded as Priest's best and most well-known book. The Separation is a book that at one moment is similar (another novel about duality and identity) and at once utterly different. It very nearly defies a plot summary, since any attempt to convey the storyline would be in itself verging on a spoiler. But I will do my best.

A historian working in 1999 becomes intrigued by a minor historical figure, a pacifist in Second World War Britain briefly mentioned by Churchill in his war memoirs. This man, JL Sawyer, is soon revealed to be one of a pair of identical twins. In 1936 Jack and Joe Sawyer take part in the Olympic Games in Berlin as coxless rowers, winning a bronze medal, but soon the outbreak of war separates them: Jack becomes a bomber pilot, tormented by the destruction he wreaks each night on German cities. Joe, the pacifist, becomes a Red Cross ambulance driver helping find survivors of the nightly Blitz on cities such as Manchester and London. Their stories are related as a series of diaries and memoirs written by both and also in (mostly fictional) historical documents relating to the period, some by such personages as Churchill, Goebbels and Rudolph Hess. Other devices come into play, particularly towards the ending of the book.

Priest is well-known for his slippery plots, pulling off narrative sleights-of-hand and 'twist' moments that make M. Night Shymalan's films look like the work of an amateur hack. Here he seems to reveal the twist very early, within a few pages (and silencing the critics who claim his books are rarely 'overt' SF). However, he rapidly pulls the rug out from the reader's feet again, and then again. Amidst the confusion generated by the shifting narrative, however, a pattern slowly emerges which seems confirmed in the extremely haunting conclusion. Some may deem the ending to be a 'cop-out' but nothing it as it seems, for the revelation apparently inherent in the book's finale does not explain events earlier in the book, leading to much greater thought being demanded from the reader to examine the truth of the story.

The Seperation, like most Priest books, hides an incredible amount of depth behind its deceptively simple, almost sparse prose. Characters are built up and deconstructed with nearly contemptuous ease in front of us. Priest captures the atmosphere of WWII Britain and the moral confusion of the reality of war with vivid storytelling techniques and the use of statistics and historical texts (real and feigned). Priest even educates the reader in areas about the war that have not been very well explored (the state of conscientious objectors in WWII Britain is not something I had previously considered).

The Separation is an extraordinary book, even moreso than The Prestige. The lack of an 'absolute' conclusion or explanation for what has happened in the book may irritate some readers, but I found it extremely refreshing to read a book that demands that the reader actually think, rather than being spoon-fed the answers on a plate. It is in places beautifully written: Priest's take on Churchill is so good I was startled to find several impressive and very 'Churchillian' pieces of dialogue were Priest's own invention and not taken from any kind of historical record. In other places the theme of the book is so vast that sometimes it threatens to overwhelm the more human moments of the story (the reader is perhaps invited to furiously think "What the hell is going on?" rather than simply sit back and have the tale unfold). However, this is more likely to have just been my reaction to the story rather than an inherent problem. I would say that I found myself preferring The Prestige to The Seperation by a hair's breadth, but this may just have been brain hoisting the surrender flag. After greater reflection, I suspect I will find myself approving it the more of the two books.

The Separation is an excellent, headily atmospheric novel that forces the reader to think about what they are reading carefully. I recommend it without hesitation. This book was nearly stillborn due to the stupidity of the original publishers and the literary world would be a much poorer place without it.

The Separation (*****) is available from Gollancz in the UK in two editions: as part of their Christopher Priest range and as part of their Future Classics range. The book is also available in the USA from Old Earth Books.

Wertzone Classics: The Prestige by Christopher Priest

The Prestige is the ninth novel by the British SF author Christopher Priest. It was first published in 1995 and won the World Fantasy Award for that year. It is Priest's best-known novel and apparently his most successful. An excellent film version by Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, Memento) starring Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johansson, was released in late 2006.

The Prestige is the story of two feuding magicians from the late 19th Century, the aristocratic Rupert Angier and his working-class nemesis, Alfred Borden, and how that feud affects later generations of their families, personified in the mid-1990s by Borden's descendent Andrew Westley and Kate Angier. A strange mystery has haunted Andrew's life and his search for the answer leads him to Kate and the story of the feud.

From there the novel takes us back some 130 years and relates, in two separate sections, the life stories of Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier. Borden's story is told as a somewhat (deliberately) confused narrative, supposedly a commentary on a book on stage magic, but Borden's need to tell his story takes over and he goes into detail about his life and the feud with Angier. We learn that Borden develops an incredible magic trick which no-one can fathom, a trick which is then improved upon by Angier, to Borden's fury. The narrative then switches to Angier's more formal diary. Angier's story forms the bulk of the novel and takes us through his youth and his slow beginnings at the art of magic until his fateful meeting with Borden and the consequences of that meeting.

Priest tells his story by shifting between four first-person narratives (Andrew and Kate in the present, Rupert and Alfred in the past), altering his prose style between the two periods with apparent ease and painting these four central characters and the other characters described in their tales with depth and layers. As well as giving an insight into the world of stage magic he brings turn-of-the-century Britain to life with its slow, reluctant letting go of the old century and its embrace of the new, symbolised by the power of electricity. Electricity itself is nearly a character in the novel, the awe which Angier holds it in described with a nearly fetish-like quality and brought to life through the historical figure of Nikolai Tesla, who plays a minor but key role in the narrative.

The Prestige is a puzzle built upon twists, turns and conflicting mysteries. It's like an M Night Shymalan film but one where the twist you were confidently expecting is suddenly yanked out of sight and something unforseen being dropped in its place. Some may question whether if this is really an SF novel, so subtle are the ideas being explored here, but by the end of the book more overt SF elements have emerged and it is a tribute to Priest's writing that he keeps things firmly grounded in reality. The ending, when it comes, may strike some as abrupt, but on another level it is the perfect, ambiguous ending to a nearly perfectly-tuned mystery. The Prestige is one of the most finely-written, 'different' SF novels I've ever read, and firmly recommended to all.

The Prestige (*****) is published by Gollancz in the UK and by Tor in the USA.