An Infinite Summer

by Christopher Priest

« À environ un tiers du marais se trouvaient les restes de l’avion allemand accidenté, peint de multiples nuances de brun et de vert, pétrifié dans le temps. Il s’était immobilisé lors du rebond, après un premier impact destructeur, à l’instant où il s’élevait dans la boue gelée parmi des panaches d’écume glacée. »

Héritier littéraire, à l’image de son compatriote J. G. Ballard, de la new wave britannique qui révolutionna les littératures de genre au tournant des années 70, on doit à Christopher Priest de nombreux incontournables — Le Monde inverti , La Fontaine pétrifiante , Le Glamour , ou encore L’Adjacent . Son roman Le Prestige , publié en 1995, lauréat du World Fantasy Award, a été porté à l’écran en 2006 par Christopher Nolan.

L’Été de l’infini réunit les meilleures nouvelles de Christopher Priest publiées sur cinquante années de carrière, soit douze textes, dont quatre inédits. Un long entretien, le témoignage de l’aventure que fut l’adaptation du Prestige au cinéma, ainsi qu’une bibliographie exhaustive, complètent un ensemble indispensable à l’appréhension d’un auteur dont Xavier Mauméjean affirme, dans son introduction au présent ouvrage : « [qu’il] est un écrivain de sciencefiction et se revendique comme tel. Pourtant, avec d’autres auteurs d’égale envergure, tel Philip K. Dick, Thomas M. Disch, J. G. Ballard ou Frederik Pohl, il pousse le genre à son extrême limite, l’oblige à se dépasser en explorant la réalité, à affronter ce qui se tient hors de portée du vrai. La vérité n’est qu’une possibilité du réel, en aucun cas sa mesure... »

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Time Travel, Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction

189 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1979

About the author

Christopher Priest was born in Cheshire, England. He began writing soon after leaving school and has been a full-time freelance writer since 1968.

He has published eleven novels, four short story collections and a number of other books, including critical works, biographies, novelizations and children’s non-fiction.

He has written drama for radio (BBC Radio 4) and television (Thames TV and HTV). In 2006, The Prestige was made into a major production by Newmarket Films. Directed by Christopher Nolan, The Prestige went straight to No.1 US box office. It received two Academy Award nominations. Other novels, including Fugue For a Darkening Island and The Glamour, are currently in preparation for filming.

He is Vice-President of the H. G. Wells Society. In 2007, an exhibition of installation art based on his novel The Affirmation was mounted in London.

As a journalist he has written features and reviews for The Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the New Statesman, the Scotsman, and many different magazines.

Reviews

[Oscar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Relectura de este gran libro relatos de Christopher Priest, al que las editoriales españolas tienen olvidado desde hace bastante tiempo. Se me vienen a la cabeza prosa exquisita y ambientación magnífica. No es una narrativa fantástica al uso, y yo diría que se acerca bastante a lo que hacía J.G Ballard en sus relatos, donde insertaba elementos atípicos, extraños que le dan un vuelco a lo que estás leyendo.

Un verano infinito. Transcurre en varias épocas diferentes, siempre con el mismo protagonista, es decir, que estamos ante un relato de viajes en el tiempo, pero bastante curioso. Este protagonista pasea a principios del siglo XX con una joven de la que está enamorado, hasta que algo sucede que deja ese instante congelado en el tiempo. Es una maravilla.

Rameras. Relato ambientado en El Archipiélago de Sueño, unas islas donde se mantiene la neutralidad de una guerra que lleva en marcha desde hace años. El protagonista es un soldado de permiso que decide viajar a una de estas islas para reencontrarse con una prostituta con la que estuvo hace un tiempo. Tal vez el cuento más flojo de la antología, que no malo, ya que la ambientación es excelente, así como un giro un tanto perturbador.

Vagabundeos pálidos. Cómo explicar algo de este relato sin contar demasiado. Hay un parque, con un río mercurial que sirvió para lanzar una nave al espacio, y sobre el que ahora se han construido tres puentes con lo que viajas en el tiempo: al ayer, al hoy y al mañana. Obra maestra. Sin duda uno de los mejores relatos sobre esta temática que se han escrito.

La negación. Otro relato ambientado en El Archipiélago de Sueño. Un joven soldado que vigila la frontera entre dos países en lucha, está obsesionado con La Afirmación, de Moylita Kaine. Resulta que esta escritora va a venir de visita a la isla donde está destinado, y tiene planeado ir a conocerla. Otro gran relato. A todo esto, Priest hace metaliteratura, ya que también tiene una novela titulada La Afirmación, para su mejor trabajo junto a El prestigio.

El observado. De nuevo nos encontramos en El Archipiélago de Sueño. Ordier, que amasó una fortuna fabricando escintilas, especie de insecto nanotecnológico para espiar al enemigo, vive retirado en Tumo, una de las islas. Tiene una relación con una antropóloga que estudia a los qataari, que viven refugiados en la isla, y cuya sociedad permanece casi totalmente hermética para el resto del mundo. Sin embargo, Ordier ha encontrado un modo de espiar a estos qataari, y en concreto a una joven de la que está obsesionado. Hay fragmentos geniales, y otros un tanto confusos. Aun así, deja huella.

[Graham P · Rating 4 out of 5]

Infinite Summer, Christopher Priest, Pan Science Fiction, 1979.

Priest hovers somewhere between Graham Greene & J.G. Ballard, two fellow Englishmen who detail disillusion with varying degrees of espionage, envy, national pride, and many hollow men. This collection of five tales cements the transition where Priest left outer space in order to examine the 'inner space' that Ballard referred to when SF spun its wheels into smoke and cinder. 'An Infinite Summer' is a near-brilliant collection running the gamut between the grim and the unabashedly romantic.

'An Infinite Summer' - a young Londoner falls in love with the sister of the woman he is to woo and eventually wed. However, this Victorian romance is royally disturbed when a timeslip terrorist takes his freeze-gun and paralyzes the woman of our protagonist's desire, leaving her frozen in the moment. Now the old man wanders a WW2 London where other people are frozen in time along the Thames abuzz with the German invasion, contemplating not only his dying desire, but how time functions so haphazardly. Such a wild premise, unfortunately marred by its eventual comforts and convenience. Still, rather brilliant.

'Whores' - the 1st of the Dream Archipelago Cycle. A soldier is on R&R after being exposed to a nerve gas that rewires his senses -- he begins to smell what he sees. As he hunts down a prostitute, he finds that she was victim to the dubious war of the islands, and in the arms of another woman, he finds that his solace is as far out of reach as his duplicitous bodily functions. Very solid atmosphere here, only marred by a disembodied hand confusing the climax, a Dali-esque diversion that doesn't quite fit.

'Palely Loitering' - an unabashedly Victorian love story where the narrator visits a riverside amusement where three bridges bring tourists to the past, the future, and the alternate today. After spotting his 'object of desire' sitting on a bench awaiting her lover, he seeks to discover who her lover is, while navigating his passion through the missteps of time travel. Understated and eloquent, a steampunk dalliance that is both bittersweet and playful.

'The Negation' - channeling Camus & Franz K., Priest writes a gloomy novelette on soldiers and writers as the setting once again returns to the Dream Archipelago. A young soldier becomes fascinated with a writer-in-residence at the wartorn village he's stationed to protect. The tale's initial mood is one of Russian minimalism, and then soon develops into a treatise on the inner strife between the artist vs. the soldier. With a plot as vague as the fog-shrouded wall pivotal to the climax, 'The Negation' may just have negated itself, and it feels like an unfinished piece that is worthy for its existential pallor only. Still, it's so well-written, you don't mind feeling underwhelmed at its climax.

'The Watched' is the most 'far-out' of the lot. Here on the islands, a millionaire ex-pat finds a folly overlooking a pasture of strange flowers, harvested by the odd Quattari, a group of refugees that have taken solace on the island of Tumo. Disillusion and horny as all middle-aged hell, the main narrator tries to figure out the odd ceremonies that take place in the Quattari's Arena, while also hoping to make sense of the 'scintillas' (microscopic cameras) that not only hide in his mansion but all over the island. Perverted and rich with subtlety, 'The Watched' is a fine novella that shows the imaginative restraint and deviant suggestion that Priest is known for.

Up next, his 'Dream of Essex'.

[Michael Battaglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

For all the similarities between the SF of different countries, if the British do one thing fairly well, its a type of pastoral, nostalgic SF that even when its set in the future still concerns a longing for a certain time . . . maybe not a specific time (in the US "nostalgia for a certain time" generally means either the 1940s-50s or if you're younger and don't know any better, the 80s) but just a general acute sense of passing time, the notion of trying to recapture the days that have gone by, not just for ourselves personally but an entire era that always seems to be just out of reach. Even when that era was defined as "when that cute girl sat three seats from me and one time we locked gazes and I think really understood each other."

Christopher Priest in the 70s had a very poetic style that was heavy on mood and not always so big on concrete imagery, so its quite possible to love what you're reading and not totally understand what's happening, or feel like you're just about to get it when the story ends and you're left grasping at the wisps of air left behind. His "Dream Archipelago" stories are a good example of that, a series of stories based on fictional islands that may have been dreamed into existence . . . the stories may not be related to each other but they all share a similar atmosphere and feel, the sensation of both being about to wake up and go right under again. We get three of them here, plus two time travel stories.

The time travel tales are the most obsessed with nostalgia, not so much for that specific time but to be a certain age at that time. "An Infinite Summer" will probably have the most immediate impact, one of the few pure romances that exist in SF, the story of Thomas Lloyd, who was all ready to propose to the girl who loved him back in 1903 but just as they were about to celebrate they were halted in time by people from some far future that Thomas calls "Freezers". Over thirty years later it wears off him, leaving him still able to see his love but unable to make contact with as she's still frozen. Its one of the more haunting time travel stories you'll read . . . the central imagery alone of a young couple frozen in time in a moment of happiness at the turn of the century before everything went to hell (not only has Thomas lost everything when he's unfrozen but Europe is still recovering from one war while another war is tapping him on the shoulder saying, "Ready for round two?") is staggering and Priest manages to capture the feel of being in love in a simpler time while wishing for those days back again when the world has gone downhill slightly. There are very images in SF stranger or more dream-like than Thomas watching the "freezers" silently appearing out of nowhere and freezing people without explaining (or being seen).

"Palely Loitering" is along the same lines but in a completely different way. Also seemingly set at the turn of the century, it features a young boy on an Earth where the one attempt at making a spaceship caused a fluctuation in time in a certain area . . . with the spaceship presumably both exploring and lost the area has been turned into a park with three bridges built that can take you to the same day or tomorrow or yesterday. When the family visits the park on an outing he takes a wrong step and goes a little too far in the future, but sees a young beautiful girl who might be waiting for someone and its a sight that haunts him throughout his life and subsequent visits. Thanks to years of time travel stories you can probably figure out the twists in this as you go along but Priest uses the concept to mine feelings of lost opportunities and the tension of sensing yourself and the world growing older at different rates. None of this may be new territory for time travel tales but Priest's story has a hurried elegance to it, trying to remember a fleeting image before it slips away entirely and takes a whole world with it. It doesn't hit with the same ache as the other story but the pleasures are more subtle here and maybe a little more satisfying for it.

As mentioned, the last three stories are set in the Dream Archipelago, in and around what seems to be a very vaguely defined war. The first story "Whores" is a total nightmare that doesn't seem like its going that way until near the very end. Its one of those stories that coast purely on feel and if the ending wasn't so striking the rest of it wouldn't linger in the mind so much. But Priest handles the subtle change of tone gracefully and sticks the landing as much as one can. Its probably the weakest story in here but that's not saying much.

"The Negation" is amusingly based around a novel that Priest would later use as the title for one of his own novels ("The Affirmation"). It centers around a conscripted soldier sent for border duty who manages to get himself stationed near where one of his favorite authors has been sent to write material for the regime. Their interactions form the core of the story, which seems to exist more to give the reader an idea of what kind of world they live in than relay a solid plot . . . he mixes philosophy and the art of writing itself against the real barriers it faces when art isn't so valued for what it is. Again, what's interesting about this story is the atmosphere he creates and how he manages to maintain it even when the story starts to go completely surreal toward the end. Since a lot of the action is more realistic some readers may not like the shift (I think he handled it better in the next story) but it felt for me more like grasping at air in the dark and thinking you've caught a hand and are afraid to let go in case it really is someone else who needs someone too.

He pulls out all the stops for the last story, which is everything all the others were and more. "The Watched" is set on one of the islands again where people have come to get away from the wars. Tiny devices called scintillas are scattered everywhere and the man who invented both the devices and their detectors, Ordier, is on the island with his lover Jenessa (who's from the island). Things are going peacefully even when another professor and his wife come to visit them, at which point we realize why the island is so interesting. A colony of Qataari has moved in some time ago, a people so secretive that they reveal absolutely nothing of their society. Their villages are ringed with guards who at the first sign of being watched shout and turn around, while every villager simply stops moving like a weird game of freeze-tag. But they aren't frozen, they're just waiting for you to go away so they can go back to whatever it was they were doing, like five year olds in a very complex game.

This is all strange enough but Ordier has been able to watch them from two vantage points . . . a spot over a ridge and a different location from a castle he's bought. From the window he can watch them cultivate their roses and engage in a very ritual that he's always lucky enough to catch when it starts. Or is he lucky?

If other Priest stories can be considered dream-like, this one goes into a full on fever dream, starting out normally enough with the SF devices and the setting before kicking into another level of surreal weirdness entirely with the introduction of the Qataari, who are sort of like a more mysterious, more sensual version of the Freezers from "An Infinite Summer", doing what they do (or don't do) without explanation and no real hope for understanding. And Priest carries that along marvelously here, sustaining a mood that gradually bleeds into unease and hazy paranoia before culminating in a scene that explains everything and nothing and is far more brilliant for it. By the end you don't know if Ordier has gotten exactly what he wanted or is being terribly punished and its that sensation of coming up against something utterly close and utterly alien that gives the story its own weird beauty. Its bizarre but in an exciting way, giving you a world that just about makes sense and peeling it back enough to see the gears exposed only to let you know there's more to it than even the people who live there can get. Its the kind of story where it feels like the author knew exactly what he was doing from the start and captured that vision exactly. It makes the collection worth tracking down even if the other stories weren't already good. Anyone who only knows Priest from "The Prestige" might find it worthwhile to track down his much earlier stuff to find the kind of SF they don't write anymore even when he was still writing it.

[Bart · Rating 4 out of 5]

(...)

The interpretation of “a purpose” isn’t fully clear to me. If Priest meant that there is one overall purpose to the order of these stories, I haven’t discovered that. But if he meant the ordering was done in a purposeful manner, I do think he succeeded in creating a “new work” indeed, and there is a rhythm and interconnectedness to these stories that works well, so that they reinforce each other, and climax at the end.

Love, time travel, nerve agents and war are superficial similarities to some or even all of these stories, but the connections run much deeper: they deal with observing others and oneself, memories & images of each other, and how people change over time – because of observations & because of context. It must also be stressed these stories are human first, all else secondary: the war is just a setting, the sparse science fictional ideas mainly just a backdrop too.

I liked each and every story – not that I’d give every story 4 or 5 stars – but as a whole An Infinite Summer indeed is more than the sum of its parts.

(...)

Full review on Weighing A Pig Doesn't Fatten It

[DrCrower Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me despido (hasta que algún editor se decida a publicar sus inéditos en castellano) de uno de mis escritores preferidos, recientemente fallecido, con la lectura del último libro suyo que me quedaba pendiente en casa. Una selección de relatos formidable, en la que hace un uso de la ciencia ficción íntimo cuando no sentimental. Un maestro.
UN VERANO INFINITO -10
RAMERAS -8
VAGABUNDEOS PÁLIDOS -9
LA NEGACIÓN -8
EL OBSERVADO -9

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Se puede hacer género de muchas formas.-

Género. Relatos.

Lo que nos cuenta. Cinco relatos largos del autor, escritos en la segunda mitad de los años setenta, bastante bien colocados en el palmarés de los premios más importantes de Ciencia-Ficción y Fantasía de esos tiempos, que nos llevaran a conocer los problemas cognitivos de un herido de guerra, a conocer el Canal Magnético y cómo afecta al tiempo, a conocer a la escritora de un libro que influencia mucho al protagonista, a conocer los instantes congelados en el tiempo que se entremezclan con nuestra propia línea temporal y a ver la vida de una persona a la que le gusta “mirar”.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com....

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is comprised of a few different short stories. It was published in 1979 and some of the stories show it, especially the last one. They’re still really good interesting weird stories though, and I really enjoyed them all. So honestly, 5 stars and best reads pile.

[Simon Hedge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five short stories from the writer of The Prestige.

An Infinite Summer - First appearance Andromeda 1 1976. Priest broke of from writing The Space Machine at the behest of Harlan Ellison to write this story for the third (and still unpublished) Dangerous Visions anthology. I think it shows as the Wells-ian feel of that novel seems present in this story of unfortunate subjects of some futuristic 'art installation'.

Whores - First appearance New Dimensions 8 1978. A disturbing story of drug-induced synaesthesia and lust from Priest's 'Dream Archipelago' sequence.

Palely Loitering - First appearance The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 1979. A time-travel story, and as with pretty much all of that breed it doesn't stand up to too much close scrutiny of its internal logic. Still a wonderfully written and charming story, but for me the weakest in this collection.

The Negation - First appearance Anticipations 1978. Another example of the 'Dream Archipelago' stories. This one really reminded me of the writing of Kafka, although I would be hard pressed to put into words exactly why. A young poet learns much about what literature can mean to different people when he gets to meet the author of his favourite book.

The Watched - First Appearance The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 1978. For my money the strongest story in this very strong collection. An unsettling tale of voyeurism on personal, corporate and national levels in the 'Dream Archipelago' universe.

All of these stories are astonishingly well written and I'm sure would respond well to the kind of close-reading that I have neither the time nor the intellect to give them. All wrapped up in (at least in the edition I read) some very attractive cover art.

Highly, highly recommended.

[Dalibor Dado Ivanovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sve price su mi odlicne u ovoj zbirci. Ne mogu izdvojit neku da mi je bas posebnija od drugih kad su stvarno sve super.
Od Priesta sam citao roman Invertirani svijet koji mi je bio odlican i jednu prevedenu pricu, isto odlicnu.
Mislim da se sad hvatam the Dream Archipelago...

[Ricardo Mendes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Um Verão Infinito é composto por cinco contos diferentes sem, aparentemente, nenhuma linha que os una. Não pretendo resumi-los ou apresentá-los mas aqui ficam os nomes:

Um Verão infinito;
Prostitutas;
Vagueiam Pálidos e Sós;
A Negação;
Os Observados.

Em quase todos os contos o autor fecha a narrativa com ainda muito para contar, ficando a sensação que cada um deles são apenas um esboço de uma história que ficou por explicar, por terminar, dando ao leitor a, boa ou má, oportunidade de a entender a seu livre arbitro.

Entre os cinco destaco os três últimos contos que são realmente obras a que Christopher Priest nos tem habituado. São contos que dariam certamente livros com complexos enredos que no fim nos põe a rever mentalmente todo o livro para tentar entender a história.

Para quem não é leitor habitual de Christopher Priest não é certamente o livro mais indicado para iniciar pois certamente desiludirá pelos seus breves e, talvez, inacabados contos.

[Joachim Boaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...

"With Christopher Priest’s second short story collection, An Infinite Summer (1979), he enters the pantheon of my favorite SF authors. The thing is, I knew he would all along once I moved past the sour taste of his first novel Indoctrinaire (1970) and finally picked up one of his later endeavors.

Priest’s fiction appeals to my sensibilities: he is the consummate wordsmith; his worlds (especially the stories in the loose sequence of the Dream Archipelago) are evocative [...]"

[Alex Storer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good early collection of Priest's unique short stories. Three of the stories here would later appear (perhaps edited) in The Dream Archipelago, but this first edition was worth tracking down for "Palely Loitering" and "An Infinite Summer" alone.

[Viktor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A terrific collection of stories, all with a common theme which the author would like you to discover on your own.

This was one of my faves as a teenager, and I was pleased to find that it held up (or maybe I held up). No gunfights. No fighting. Just "lterary" SF at its best.

[Charles Remington · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant collection of short stories. Haunting and thought provoking, top class science fiction from an accomplished author.

[Fabián Marilao · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sinceramente me complicaron algunos cuentos, pero la forma de escribir de este señor me gusto muchísimo, necesito encontrar todos sus libros, tarea difícil.

[Michael D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong collection of stories which perhaps merit more than one reading I was only able to give them. Loved the overall atmosphere and prose - Priest being Priest.

[John Funderburg · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Some enjoyable stories here. A couple didn't resonate with me, but the others will stay with me for quite some time. I look forward to revisiting this in the future.

[Taco Beta · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[LuisJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like Christopher Priest and you like short stories then this is for you.

[Timothy · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stories:

**** An Infinite Summer (1976)
**** Whores (1978)
***** Palely Loitering (1979)
***** The Negation (1978)
***** The Watched (1978)

[Modboy · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Reece]

How does this only have 3.7 stars? I do wonder what people expect when reading a book.

Priest at his best, each of these five stories is a work of art. He sets the tone with such ease, creates in the minds eye so completely,without overuse, that the images just stay long after the finish.