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Title: The Prestige by Christopher Priest ISBN: 0-312-85886-8 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 15 September, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.86 (21 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Double your pleasure, double your fun
Comment: Christopher Priest's _the Prestige_ is an entertaining read; well written fantasy without asking us to view the world in any particular new way. _The Prestige's_ greatest strength lies in its ability to harken back to a Victorian style of writing while maintaining modern sensibilities of fiction.
The Victorian aspect comes from Priest's use of the diary and memoir style to develop most of the plot. He presents to us the story of a rivalry told from the points of view of the rivals, magicians Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier. Both have reasonably excellent ability in performance and skill in their trade. Priest is successful in giving each of these gentlemen separate voices. (actually creating six separate voices total; not an easy task in one novel). It is faintly reminiscent of Stoker's _Dracula_ or Hogg's _Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner_.
The other particularly Victorian (and gothic) aspect is the novel's obession with the theme of duality, doubles and the dopelganger. Here we have our Dr. Jekylls and Mr. Hydes, Frankenstein and his monster, and even _Invasion of Body Snatchers_ played out in the novel.
Throw in some really neat stuff about stage magicians in general--Alfred Borden's "Pact" with the audience is one of the most interesting philosophical discussions about the stage i've ever read--and you have one quite entertaining and pleasing novel.
So put a little magical reading into your evenings and enjoy.
Rating: 5
Summary: deserves a wider audience
Comment: Christopher Priest must be one of the most decorated but unread authors around. In 1983 he was named one of the Best of Young British Novelists. And The Prestige won both the World Fantasy Award and Britain's James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Meanwhile, I'd never heard of him and when the book got some good reviews over here, it was a NY Times notable book, I couldn't find it anywhere. Bur I'm glad I finally got ahold of a copy, because the novel lives up to the hype.
Priest tells the story of two turn of the century magicians, Rupert Angier and Alfred Borden, who are first rivals and then bitter enemies as what starts out as an attempt to learn each others secrets deteriorates into obsessive hatred and is even handed down to succeeding generations. Eventually their efforts to top one anothers latest tricks draw Nikola Tesla into the picture. Angier travels to Colorado to see if Tesla's experiments with electricity have any magical implications. They do and the results are predictably, but delightfully, horrifying.
It's pretty hard to describe this novel without giving too much of the story away. It's also a story that invites comparison; I saw reviewer references to The Alienist, Robertson Davies, John Fowles, H.G. Wells, etc. Suffice it to say, the writing is terrific, the story is original but harkens back to classic themes and the tension he builds is palpable. My only complaint is that it either ended abruptly or simply before I wanted it to; I'm not sure which. Find it and read it. You won't want it to end either.
GRADE: A
Rating: 4
Summary: Different and enjoyable
Comment: I wasn't really sure what to expect coming into this book. The blurbs on the back are kind of vague, but the positive reviews got me to pick it up. Now I understand why the cover blurb is so vague: it is very difficult to describe the plot of this book. The most general way, without giving away too much, would be to explain that it is the story of two stage magicians in turn of the century (the last century, that is: 1900) England who end up in a feud that escalates in unexpected directions. At the heart of the novel is a mystery, one which the reader is not fully revealed until the last 50 pages of the book. This book won the World Fantasy Award, but I found that it leans more towards sci-fi rather than fantasy. It's sci-fi written in a style that is reminiscent of HG Wells which, considering the time period in which the majority of the book takes place, adds to the flavor of the story.
What drives the book forward is its interesting characters. Throughout the book, the reader encounters four (possibly five, depending on how you look at it) narrators, all told in the first person, be it standard first person narration or from diary entries. On top of this, two of the narrators live in the late 19th century while the other two are from the present day, which serves to heighten the central mystery. Priest does an excellent job of giving each character their own voice and motivations.
As the feud between the two characters living in the 1880s escalates, the reader feels directly involved in the rising tensions and the desparate race of each man to uncover the other's secrets. We also see how this affects the narrators in the present day who happen to be descendants of the earlier two. While the plot itself is carefully unfolded throughout the book, the payoff in the reveal of the secret suddenly jumps out at the reader as the book begins to wind down. Unfortunately, I got the impression that the book ended before the story of the two modern narrators was finished. I would have liked that story to be tied up a bit more neatly. Here we have this big reveal to the two descendants, but then not much is done with it.
All in all, however, this is a very worthwhile book. I enjoyed the atmosphere that Priest created and was thoroughly engaged by the characters. If you're looking for something different than the standard fantasy fare on the shelves, this book will definitely sate you.
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Title: Last Call by Tim Powers ISBN: 038072846X Publisher: Avon Pub. Date: 01 December, 1996 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Bridge of Birds : A Novel of an Ancient China That Never Was by Barry Hughart ISBN: 0345321383 Publisher: Del Rey Pub. Date: 12 April, 1985 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Eight Skilled Gentleman by Barry Hughart ISBN: 0385417101 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 01 December, 1990 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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Title: Perdido Street Station by China Mieville ISBN: 0345443020 Publisher: Del Rey Pub. Date: 27 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: The Inverted World: A Novel. by Christopher. Priest ISBN: 0060134216 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: May, 1974 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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