The Islanders

by Christopher Priest

A stunning literary SF novel from the multiple award winning Christopher Priest. A tale of murder, artistic rivalry and literary trickery; a Chinese puzzle of a novel where nothing is quite what it seems; a narrator whose agenda is artful and subtle; a narrative that pulls you in and plays an elegant game with you. 

The Dream Archipelago is a vast network of islands. The names of the islands are different depending on who you talk to, their very locations seem to twist and shift. Some islands have been sculpted into vast musical instruments, others are home to lethal creatures, others the playground for high society. Hot winds blow across the archipelago and a war fought between two distant continents is played out across its waters. THE ISLANDERS serves both as an untrustworthy but enticing guide to the islands, an intriguing, multi-layered tale of a murder and the suspect legacy of its appealing but definitely untrustworthy narrator.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Mystery, Literary Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Novels

352 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 22, 2011

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

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christopher Priest is a world builder along the lines of Frank Herbert and his Dune series, only with Priest his world is an Earth-like planet composed of many hundreds of islands rather than our seven continents. Included in the author's series are, to date, The Affirmation, The Dream Archipelago, The Gradual and this 2011 novel under review, The Islanders, a breathtaking tour de force of invention and imagination.

The majority of chapters are written in the form of a tourist guidebook for a specific island, complete with references to topography, climate, flora, fauna and prevailing culture - traits and interests of the population,, museums, theaters, concert halls, beaches, hiking trails, cuisine, legal restrictions, and currency in use. The longer chapters interspersed throughout are intense personal accounts of various unfolding dramas. To share a glimpse of what a reader will encounter, below are a number of the more memorable highlights of my journey across the British author's remarkable creation:

TUNNELING
On a number of islands, Annadac for one, thrill seekers have embraced the dangerous sport of tunneling - they wear inflatable jackets or ride rafts to be propelled by hair-raising torrents of rushing water via a tunnel bored through a mountain created by engineers or installation artists such as the renounced Jordenn Yo. Sound like fun? Be aware there’s the inevitable yearly death toll. Thus participants are required to put down a cash deposit to cover possible funeral expenses. Also dangerous for the creator - on several islands where tunneling has subsequently been strictly prohibited, Jordenn Yo has served jail time.

ULTIMATE KILLER
As part of a historical account from the journal of entomologist Jaem Aubrac we come to know of a deadly insect once having thrived on one of the islands - the thryme (Buthacus thrymeii). Shaped along the lines of a scorpion with its two large, muscular pincers next to its head and a poisonous stinging tail curved over its body, the thryme is much larger, the size of a small cat. Aubrac’s team conducted experiments to observe the thryme in action - against, in turn, a hawk, pit viper, rat and giant scorpion. None of the foes lasted more than forty-eight seconds. What makes the thryme particularly lethal is how it can dart across the ground at extraordinary speeds. The scientists had to abandon the island wearing special protective suits. But even such safety precautions were not enough as the thryme’s strong pincers pierced layers of protective material and members of the team died instantly. The guidebook reports how thrymes were eradicated many years ago and tourism has since flourished. Mysterious deaths are still reported on this island named after the famous entomologist, however all drawing or photos or even the mere mention of thrymes are prohibited by law. Sound ominous? Would you nonetheless be lured by Aubrac's splendiferous beaches, exquisite golf courses or exotic cuisine? Not me!

ETERNAL LIFE
The island of Collago is the famous destination for those lucky lottery winners who will be given the medical operation making them physically immortal. Fans of the author will recognize Peter Sinclair from The Affirmation was one such lottery winner. Of course, such a procedure opens up numerous philosophical questions and quagmires. For myself, if offered a treatment providing me with unending years of good health, I’d gladly take it! Among other advantages, I would stand a better chance of reaching the bottom of my to-be-read stack.

SILENT THREAT
One major drama revolves around the life and death of mime artist Commis. At the main theater on the island of Goorn, an apprentice stage hand tells the story of how Commis would room at the theater, hardly ever leaving – the mime would remain in character round the clock. At one point backstage in the manager’s office, Commis mimes eating a banana, then blithely tosses the peel on the floor. When the narrator gets up to leave, Commis recoils in terror, pointing at the peel. The narrator, no fan of mime, can’t help himself, he steps over the peel so as not to slip. For readers familiar with Christopher Priest’s The Prestige and its major theme of doubles and identical twins, the ultimate identity of Commis will have a familiar ring.

NAUGHTY PAINTING
One of the greatest of all island artists, Dryd Bathurst, painted epic landscapes - stunning and awe-inspiring. The guidebook relates the story of his heroic oil, The Wood-Combers’ Return, on display in the palace of a royal family. One evening an art critic scrutinized the canvas with a magnifying glass. The critic wondered at the likeness of two ravished nymphs in the lower left corner of the painting to the wife and daughter of the eminent Seignior. The Seignior himself took a look through the glass. Later that evening, Dryd Barthurst pulled back the sheets in the guest room where he was staying and found a huge thryme, not long dead, serum oozing from its savage mandibles. The artist was never seen again on the island.

LOTUS-EATERS
Mesterline is the island famous for its tolerant, informal, hang easy, dangle loose attitude and approach to life. When the rain showers down in mid-afternoon, the Mesters will interrupt any business or commercial activity to go outside in the streets and public squares to raise their heads and arms, allowing the rains to wash over their hair, skin and cloths. You see, there is something in the water, some combination of minerals and chemicals that bestows a sense of euphoria, an overwhelming joy and feeling of universal harmony to all who drink from its springs. Needless to say, water is imbibed with every meal. An entire island of sixties hippies. The guidebook notes there was that time a large industrial company arrived on the island with its trucks and pipes to set up a plant. Soon thereafter, the Mesters realized all their water was being taken off the island. The natives quickly took action. Nowadays tourists can visit the ruins of what was once a factory and then go back to town to get high with the Mesters on Mesterline water.

CREEPY TOWERS
A first-person account of an engineer accompanying his lover, a graphic and computer technician, to the island of Seevl with its ancient dark towers emitting suffocating, noxious psychic vibrations. Fortunately, the two are given an apartment constructed with a special, protective glass warding off the tower’s invisible rays. But not so fortunately, both are obliged to spend a portion of their day outside engaged in research. This sixty page tale of terror is one of the most frightening stories I've ever encountered.

FAN MAIL
Many are the poets, novelists, essayists, journalists on the islands. Their tales are among the most intriguing in Priest’s novel. One standout is about Moylita Kaine, a young, aspiring novelist living on the island of Mill. She writes a series of lengthy fan letters to her hero and idol, the great author Chaster Kammerson. One of her letters includes her first published novel, The Affirmation. Christopher, you trickster! And let me note here how the islands also play tricks – their formation appears one way when traveling north to south and another when traveling east to west. To my mind, our British author leaves little doubt how imagination trumps fact.

PASSIONATE LOVEMAKING AS PERFORMANCE ART
The island of Yannet is the site for the meeting of two installation artists, a woman called Yo (constructor of tunnels, as per above) and a man called Oy, creator of art along different lines – he fills things in. Their meeting is not only a meeting of minds but a meeting of sweaty, lusting bodies. This chapter is a real treat for anybody interested in the intersection of art and life, of art and art theory.

I could easily list another ten, no, make that twenty. The Islanders is that compelling. Reading through other reviews of the novel, one thing pops out - once read, never forgotten. I urge you to pay a visit and encounter an author's imagination on fire.



In an effort to figure out what's going in The Islanders, Adrian Hon created the above diagram. Although Adrian acknowledges his attempt to unknot the story in this way isn't necessarily the best approach, he tells us he had fun trying.




“None of it is real, though, because reality lies in a different, more evanescent realm. These are only the names of some of the places in the archipelago of dreams. The true reality is the one you perceive around you, or that which you are fortunate enough to imagine for yourself.”
― Christopher Priest, The Islanders

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some advice on reading The Islanders, by Christopher Priest.



1. Read the introduction.

No, really. Even if you're an "I never read the introduction" kinda person, read this introduction. It's part of the story, and without it you are likely to be terrible confused, because...

2. Don't think this is a novel.

At least, not in the conventional, linear (or even non-linear) plot sense. Things happen, but not in any sort of chronological order. This is, as the introduction suggests, more of a gazette: an introduction to a few dozen of the islands which make up the Dream Archipelago. It's a mixture of straight Lonely Planet-style description and suggestions for tourists, along with police investigations, letters, wills, and a couple of short story narratives that appear to have snuck in under the radar.

3. You don't have to have read the short story "The Dream Archipelago."

I haven't.

4. Pay close attention to the names of characters.

Seriously. Really close attention. Because while there is not exactly a narrative as such, there are several recurring characters who build up around themselves quite the biography as they visit and interact with different islands; and one fairly substantial murder mystery, which also keeps getting mentioned in relation to different people and different islands. If you don't keep track of names you won't experience the maddening joy of getting another jigsaw piece that may or may not fit into one of the several puzzles you have on the go.

5. Be prepared for a lot of wind.

Breezes, zephyrs, howling gales; humid, dry, grit- or snow-filled; wind plays a really significant part in many of the descriptions of the islands. They all have their own names, often different ones from island to island.

6. Accept that each island has its own language (or several).

And before you dismiss this as ridiculous, remember that it is estimated that Papua New Guinea - a country of just some 462, 840km2 - has "over 850 indigenous languages" (I'm not afraid to use Wikipedia when it's expedient and unlikely to be controversial). So why shouldn't separate islands have different languages and cultures?

7. Take nothing for granted.

Not even time and space. The Dream Archipelago isn't a dream - there's no waking up - but there are definitely hints that time, especially, is something that might just happen to other people. Just go with it. Enjoy the maddeningly slippery way in which Priest suggests new information that may or may not fit in with other information given earlier in the gazette.

8. People who should avoid this book include:

Those who are easily confused by occasional and slight reference to probably important characters; people just turn up when they are relevant to the island under discussion. They might have been born there, died there, visited there, made art there, been arrested there. And it might only be one sentence in the island's entry.

Readers who really prefer a linear plot; because as mentioned above, there isn't one. There was a murder once, on the island Cheoner, whose investigation and subsequent surrounding mystery provides the only thing close to a plot you'll find; there are references to the people involved in the entries for maybe another six or seven islands, spread out over the course of the whole book. There are also biographical notes for four or five main characters also spread throughout the book, and they are sometimes contradictory but always interesting.

People who get seasick just by reading about the ocean: there are islands. There is island hopping. Some important things happen at sea.

The extremely insect-averse, because the thryme - a really, really nasty critter - has basically a whole entry about itself, and it keeps getting mentioned throughout.

9. People who may enjoy this book include:

Those who enjoy discussions about what actually constitutes art. Does boring a tunnel through a mountain count? Is there a point in creating art that no one, not even the artist, will ever see?

Readers who enjoy a good puzzle; because the whole book is a puzzle. Putting the pieces together about (for example) Dryd Bathurst's life is a great deal of (sometimes conflicting) fun.

People who like islands. There are islands.

The seeker of innovation. I wouldn't want to read book after book constructed in this manner, but it was certainly enthralling and intriguing to read this one.

10. Read this book.

Unless you're completely and irreparably put off by the notion of the non-linear/possibly non-present plot, read this book. It's a delight to read, the prose is enjoyable and varied from island to island, the ideas are stimulating, and the people as engaging and different as excellent pen-sketches can be. Read this book.

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christopher Priest is one hell of a writer.

What first appears to be a rather dry travelogue of islands, fauna, and different societies, traditions, and mirroring interconnectedness in physical location is, in fact, a novel of tricky space-time confusions, and many-layered lies told both among the inhabitants of the islands and also of lies between the two big continents that are waging an endless (and staged) war, supposedly leaving the Islands like a fascinating Switzerland between them.

But wait! That's just the big stuff. The mirroring goes deeper when we discover and revisit the murder of a mime across so many stories within this novel, going from mismanaged justice to deeper mysteries of interconnectedness, always coming back to the stories of death and taking care of the estate of the relative who has died, with great reveals hidden like stunning jewels throughout.

We get connections to the other Priest novels, including the letters of the main character of The Affirmation. It's quite complicated but not at all a chore to read. In fact, Priest has a glorious way with characterizations, always returning to fascinating sexual encounters, death, loss, and searching. He's also devoted to writers, musicians, mimes, sculptors, and painters.

The picture we get for all of the islands is probably the most complex and odd I've ever read... as in almost entirely recognizable, but deeply suspicious and ever-increasingly and fundamentally strange.

The biggest bit like that is the one where flying around a single island gives you a different island depending on which direction you go around it. Or that from the surface you can see staggered and nearly immobile airplanes locked in time.

This is definitely science fiction. We get everything from native viewpoints to high-tech drones and warfare with enormous research facilities. Moreover, though, it's a novel of unreliable narration and narrators, an unravelling puzzle of life and especially this location that seems to be an island locked within a vortex of time. I say "seems". There is no spelling this out. And yet I don't care. It's thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish.

[Mayim de Vries · Rating 5 out of 5]

“None of this is real because reality lies in a different, more evanescent realm.”

If you plan to challenge yourself this year and read one book that is outside your traditional pastures genres, beyond what you normally read and enjoy, a book that is a little bit weird, somewhat unsettling and incomprehensible at first, yet fiendishly smart and hauntingly beautiful, can I beg (too snivelling) implore (reads like a crowdfunding petition) threaten (you are not the evil overlord as of yet, Mayim) propose (this is not a date!) exhort you (now, this has a sound of an earnest advice to it) to try The Islanders?

I know it is only January, but I think I have found a strong contender for the book of the year (seriously Mr Priest, where have you been my whole life?!).

It is written in a precarious form of an incomplete (and a bit muddled) guide to the many islands of the Dream Archipelago. But you will notice that the title and the form diverge here. What is the focal point then, the islands or the people? The book offers factographic and anecdotal dossier of both. But remember, there are no reliable and comprehensive maps or charts of the archipelago, why would you think the author would be able to map the humans in the Lonely Planet sort of way, that is a way that leaves no space for mystery and understanding that some things are simply beyond our grasp?

Have this caveat in mind when you read about the love dramas, crime mysteries (and it is ingenious indeed to keep the mysterious in a mystery where both the names of both the victim and the killer are known from the start), scientific breakthroughs and failures, art history reality made real history on paper, canvas and all the least expected places, social revolutions, family issues, incredible natural (thrymes!) and unnatural occurrences (temporal vortex!), geopolitics, drifts and storms and occasional silences in between.

You will be confused. Do not be alarmed. This is normal. Eventually, with each consecutive chapter, a morphing and yet strangely consistent shape will emerge. The plot is not a linear thing we are used to, it starts here and there, is stumbles, it goes in circles, at times it ends up in a dead end on a lonely island only to retract or begin anew elsewhere. The individual arcs (if I can use this word) are formed in an infinitude of criss-crossing winds and currents. It is impossible to ascertain what is the main message, but the cues are scattered throughout the book as each story is reconstructed again and again rendering the original version both ever more complex but also more comprehensible.

I am awed and humbled by the concept, the language, the execution, the originality and depth of this novel. This is where I hide all my snark away. Where I bow with deference to mumble: I am unworthy to read your book Mr Priest, but please do enter my humble shrine (some people call it “the library”), no visa is required.

[Written on the Isle of May in the harsh winds of January that brought with them a sense of dryness, some itching for adventure and the bitter smell of decadence that precedes the change of seasons. Standard inoculations are mandatory and strict erotomane laws are in place. Tunelling is entirely prohibited. Havenic and shelterate regulations are enforced. Currency: pure gold.]

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read by Michael Maloney

Description: Reality is illusory and magical in the stunning new literary SF novel from the multiple award-winning author of The Prestige.

A tale of murder, artistic rivalry, and literary trickery; a Chinese puzzle of a novel where nothing is quite what it seems; a narrator whose agenda is artful and subtle; a narrative that pulls you in and plays an elegant game with you.

The Dream Archipelago is a vast network of islands. The names of the islands are different depending on who you talk to, their very locations seem to twist and shift. Some islands have been sculpted into vast musical instruments, others are home to lethal creatures, others the playground for high society. Hot winds blow across the archipelago and a war fought between two distant continents is played out across its waters.

The Islanders serves both as an untrustworthy but enticing guide to the islands; an intriguing, multi-layered tale of a murder; and the suspect legacy of its appealing but definitely untrustworthy narrator.




A travelogue or gazetteer (think Lonely Planet or those 'destination in the spotlight' articles in the rags) of an extensive archipelago strung around the surface of an alien planet. We are shown a handful of the islands, with names and patois nomenclature, climate, geographical quirks and even some miltary history. The delivery is in a 'just the facts ma'am' manner, detatched and clinical, adding to the underlying uneasiness.

Aay: Island of Winds: Academy of the Four Winds: artist-philosopher Esphoven Muy: 'Islands in the Dream' two-volume work. Died on Piqay
Dryd Bathurst: three celebrated paintings, one of which was a portrait of Muy. It is missing.

Annadac: Calm Place: Jordenn Yo: conceptual and installation artist.

Aubrac Grande or Aubrac Chain: Jaem Aubrac: entomologist

Cheoner: Rain Shadow: Kerith Sington: Prisoner. Akah Drester Commissah. Caurer (f) A sheet of glass moment

Collago: Silent Rain: immortality. Caurer again! Radical social theorist. Visker Deloinne: philosopher, author

Derill - Torquin: Sharp Rocks (previously Osly: Steep Banks Of Gravel): Glaundian Army Base

Derill - Torqui: Large Home/Serene Depths: Glaund Republic leases a huge tract of land. Dryd Bathurst(see Aay). Covenant

Deriil - Torquil: Dark Home/Her Home/Evening Wind: Faianland military base. Manifestation - Caurer Shrine.

It was at this point I found a wiki stub and notice that these islands were used in a previous collection of short stories

Emmeret: All Free: Emmeret family. Feudal. Ugger Park artists: poet KAL KAPES, danseuse Forssa Laajoki, painter DRYD BATHURST

Fellenstel: Spoiled Sand: the search for the killers of Commis started here.

Ferredy Atoll: Hanging Head: letters to Chaster Kammeston. 'The Affirmation' by Moylita Kaine.

Foort: Be Welcome: artist Tamarra Deer Oy

Gannten Asemant: Fragrant Spring: Dryd Bathurst ehibition

Goorn: Chill Wind: Akah Drester Commissah

Junno: Peace Earned: Faiand Federation. Journalist Dant Willer.

Keeilen: Grey Soreness: tidal-flood punishment cells

Lanna: Two Horse: poet Kal Kapes and his wife Sebenn, Dryd Bathurst

Luice: Remembered Love: Faialand Fed. Author Moylita Kaine

Manlayl: Half Completed/Half Started: Glaund Republic: earthmoving installation artist Jordenn Yo

Meequa: Bearer of Messages/Fast Wanderer: Lorna Mennerlin, Tomak, Patta, brad iskilip. tremm, jordenn yo

Mesterline: Drifting Water: poet Kal Kapes

Muriseay: Red Jungle/Threshold of Love/Big Island/Yard of Bones

At this point I shall cease naming because Priest is starting to link together occurences and I would hate to spoiler the whole caboodle.

Nelquay: Slow Tide

Orphon: Steep Hillside

Piqay 1: Followed Path

Piquay 2: Path Followed

Rowthersay 1: Declare/Sing

Rawthersay 2: Spoor

Reever: Hissing Water

Seevl: Dead Tower

Sentier: High/brother

Siff: Whistling One

Smuj: Old Ruin/Stick for Stirring/Cave with Echo

Winho: Cathedral

Yannet: Dark Green/Sir

This gazetteer, so entrancing to begin with, slid like this: \ , ended up a mere 3* and had the reader (me) sufferering from frustrated fatigue.

[হাঁটুপানির জলদস্যু · Rating 5 out of 5]

তারা দাগাতে গিয়ে থমকে গেলাম, কিন্তু শেষমেশ পাঁচ তারাই দিলাম।

গত কয়েক বছরে কয়েক বার শুরু করেও নামিয়ে রেখেছি বইটা, এবার এক টানে পড়ে ফেললাম। শুরুর দিকটা খানিকটা পাঠবৈরী মনে হতে পারে, কিন্তু সে ঢিবিটা উৎরে গেলে গড়গড়িয়ে চলতে থাকে "গল্প", তখন থামাই বরং মুশকিল।

ক্রিস্টোফার প্রিস্টের গদ্য দারুণ গোছানো, শব্দচয়ন থেকে শুরু করে গল্পকথন, সবটুকুই যেন সরু তুলির কাজ। কিন্তু "গল্প"টা অদ্ভুত, এ যেন নকশী চিনামাটির বাসন আছড়ে শত টুকরো করে তার উল্টোপিঠে নতুন নকশা এঁকে বলা গল্প। ফ্যান্টাসি উপাদান এখানে few and far between, কিছু জিনিস রীতিমতো চোখকান খোলা রেখে বুঝতে হয়। গল্পকাল সরলরৈখিক নয়, এমনকি যে হাজার হাজার দ্বীপ নিয়ে ড্রিম আর্কিপেলাগো গড়ে উঠেছে, তার কোনো দিশান আঁকারও প্রয়োজন বোধ করেননি প্রিস্ট। স্পষ্ট কোনো ভূগোল থাকে না পাঠকের সামনে, ফলে গ্যাজেটিয়ারের ঢঙে বলা গল্পে যখন একের পর এক দ্বীপের বর্ণনা আসতে থাকে, তখন কিছুক্ষণের মাঝেই পাঠক মানচিত্রের আশা বাদ দিতে বাধ্য হয়। গল্পের অন্যতম ফ্যান্টাসি উপাদান "কালঘূর্ণি"র প্রয়োগ প্রিস্ট একেবারে হাতেনাতে করে দেখিয়েছেন যেন।

জগৎসজ্জায় প্রিস্ট তুলনারহিত। এতো অল্প পরিসরে একটা কাল্পনিক দুনিয়ার মেজাজ ফুটিয়ে তোলা নিঃসন্দেহে কঠিন, তা-ও আবার লেখার এই বিশেষ ঢঙে। অধ্যায়গুলো আপাতবিচ্ছিন্ন, কোনোটা নীরস দ্বীপবর্ণনা, কোনোটা চিঠি, কোনোটা পুলিশি দলিল, কোনোটা ইতিহাস, কোনোটা বর্তমান, পাতার পর পাতা আবহাওয়ার আপাত-অপ্রাসঙ্গিক বর্ণনা, এরই মাঝে এক ছোপ দুই ছোপ করে আঁকা কয়েকটা চরিত্র আর তাদের গল্প। কখনো মনে হয়, এটা এক খুনের রহস্যভেদের গল্প, কখনো মনে হয় সামরিক ষড়যন্ত্র, কিন্তু গল্পের অভিমুখ ঘুরে যায় ক্ষণে ক্ষণে। অনেক রহস্যের টোপ ছেড়ে ছিপ ফেলে শেষ পর্যন্ত উধাও হয়ে গেছেন প্রিস্ট, কিন্তু ওর মধ্যেই গল্প যা বলার, বলা হয়ে গেছে। And for me, it turned out to be a story of a few artists trapped in their own art, their craft turning them into islands, isolated in a sea of people: their audience.

এমন নিম্নগ্রামে বলা ফ্যান্টাসি গল্প আগে কখনো পড়িনি। ভীষণ মুগ্ধ হলাম, অপূর্ণতার অনুভূতির দংশনটুকু সয়েই। হয়তো ওটাই পাঠকের জন্যে লেখকের সেরা উপহার, একটা বিরাট, নীরব শূন্যস্থান।

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Изумителен като мащаб и великолепен като език и атмосфера пъзел (или дори ребус) от истории за изкуство, любов, загуби, войни, стотици ветрове и пеещи планини, картинни епоси и времеви вортекси, който прелива от трилър, във фантастика, в хорър, в импресия, в какво ли не, и се сглобява в туристически пътеводител на един странен и невъзможен за картографиране архипелаг. Леко декадентският, силно мистериозен и ужасно изкусителен свят на The Dream Archipelago, където различни времена, хора и събития подозрително се оглеждат и преплитат едни в и с други, не за пръв път се появява в творчеството на Прийст. Предполагам, че другите книги (нямам търпение да ги прочета) дават и някои отговори, макар че не е особено задължително и няма да е проблем, ако не го правят.

Мога да кажа, че в година на доста наистина много добри книги, тази е определено Най-добрата. По амбиция и сложност на начинанието и wow-factor на изпълнението ми напомни Cloud Atlas и някои неща на Павич, осбено на Хазарски речник в хипертекстуалността.

[David Hebblethwaite · Rating 4 out of 5]

Christopher Priest’s work has given me some of the best reading experiences I’ve ever had, so I opened The Islanders – his first novel in nine years – with no small amount of anticipation. For this book, Priest returns to the world of the Dream Archipelago, setting for a number of short stories and, in part, 1981’s The Affirmation (rest assured that The Islanders stands alone, though readers of the earlier works will recognise a few names and concepts). The Dream Archipelago is a great, world-spanning array of islands; a neutral zone between two countries at war. What we’re presented with in the pages of Priest’s book is ostensibly a gazetteer of some of these islands; but, as well as the standard geographical information one would expect, some of its entries comprise narratives or other sorts of text.

Who (within the context of the fiction) wrote and compiled these entries is uncertain; but the gazetteer’s introduction is credited to one Chaster Kammeston, an Archipeligan native and celebrated writer in the world of the book. Not that Kammeston is convinced that the volume he’s introducing will be of much use, as actually mapping and navigating the Archipelago are nigh on impossible: partly because there are so many different naming conventions for the same geographical features (the ones that actually have names, at least); and partly because of the naturally-occurring “temporal vortices” which distort one’s very perception of the world. Kammeston is even unsure whether he’s the right person to be writing an introduction to a work about the vast expanses of the Archpelago, given that, as he says, “I have never stepped off the island [of my birth], and I expect never to do so before I die.” (p. 1).

But something is not quite right, here. We meet Chaster Kammeston again in the entries of the gazetteer itself; and, if we can believe what we read there, not only has he willingly left his home island several times, he is also dead – yet there he is, alive to write an introduction, apparently after the book has been compiled. Kammeston’s is just one story woven through The Islanders; other characters (many of them artists and thinkers of one kind or another) and events recur: the mime Commis is murdered in a theatre when a sheet of glass is dropped on him from above – but maybe the identity of his killer is not as cut-and-dried as it first appeared; Jordenn Yo travels the Archipelago, creating art installations by tunnelling through islands (presumably that’s what landed her in prison); we may never meet the painter Dryd Bathurst properly ‘in person’, as it were, but we hear enough about him to piece together an impression of who he is and what he might have done.

That last comment points towards a key aspect of The Islanders: namely, that its very structure forces us to construct its story (or stories) for ourselves. This is more than just a simple matter of chapters being arranged out of chronological order; as Adam Roberts notes, the novel itself can be seen as an archipelago, with each chapter an ‘island’ of narrative. Formally, Priest’s novel embodies something of what it suggests about island life:

Islands gave an underlying feeling of circularity, of coast, a limit to what you could achieve or where you might go. You knew where you were but there was invariably a sense that there were other islands, other places to be. (p. 281)

Individual entries within the book point at connections between themselves, without overtly having the sense of being linked that we would normally expect the chapters of a book to have. Priest leaves us to make the links ourselves; but, more than having to assemble a set of puzzle-pieces into a coherent picture, more than being given an incomplete set of pieces and having to fill in the gaps, in The Islanders we can fill the gaps in many different ways, thereby imagining new connections. Is Character A also Character B? Could Place X be another name for Place Y, and what does that imply if so? Just as the Dream Archipelago is ultimately unmappable, so The Islanders refuses to be understood definitively. It’s a novel which challenges our conceptions of what a novel can tell.

I’m not sure that The Islanders is right up there with the best of Priest’s work for me – it doesn’t give the great shock to the imagination that The Affirmation, The Prestige, and The Separation do – but it’s no less an elegant construction for that. It lulls you in with the measured neutrality of its prose, and the familiar, non-specific modernity of its world; so that those occasions where the narration does break out of its gazetteer-like register, or a properly fantastical notion is introduced, are all the more effective. And, as a novel which embodies its concepts and concerns within its very foundations, The Islanders is a work of art.

[Nathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very cool world-building and narrative structure. I didn't connect very strongly on a character level, but I enjoyed it! I probably just went too fast.

[Larou]

This book surprised me – Priest is very much a cerebral author, and from the reviews I had read I expected this, his first novel in eight years if I remember correctly, to be an interesting, but somewhat dry affair. Instead, it turned out to be a veritable page turner that had me glued to my Kindle with only grudging interruptions for things like the occasional food intake or sleep. Definitely not what you would expect from a book that for the most part (with the exception of some more conventional narratives interspersed here and there) is a travel guide to some imaginary islands, but that’s what happened. It might of course just have been me, and maybe I have a special affinity to books that make you follow the traces of characters scattered all over the places like leaves by the wind, but I enjoyed this immensely. I always suspected the oeuvre of Christopher Priest would appeal to me (this is the second book of his I’ve read – possibly the third, I seem to vaguely remember having read a German translation of 'A Dream of Wessex' way back as teenager), and this novel establishes that suspicion quite firmly as a fact.

[Liviu · Rating 5 out of 5]

review on re-read 2016

Inspired by reading the recent Dream Archipelago sequence novel, The Gradual, I decided to reread The Islanders (and browse through the other 3 Archipelago sequence novels/collections) and this time (maybe knowing the structure which threw me off somewhat on original read as below), I enjoyed it tremendously from page 1 and I could appreciate the many subtleties that are intertwined through the description of the islands - just to mention, the story of novelist Chaster Kammeston which serves as a generic thread connecting many of the islands, but also the ones of renowned painter Dryd Bathurst, tunneler Tamarra Oy, conceptual artist Jordenn Yo and a few others who give life to what otherwise could have been a dry collection of descriptions

Definitely better on re-read especially after reading more in the Archipelago sequence




original review 2011

While I reserve the right to change my mind and proclaim this the best novel of 2011, so far after 1 read and a half I am unimpressed; bland prose mars a very clever novel, but the cleverness is literary and that does not get that high grade marks by itself since a novel has to live so to speak and this one is a bit on life support from that point of view.

Literary cleverness is essentially a game and while some like it, i really do not and the book abounds with examples that are absurd and solipsistic to the extreme - eg a character sculpts a mountains with paid help, but the locals seem blissfully unaware, while there is no discussion of how the character pays for the materials, help...

That's fine on paper but it breaks the suspension of disbelief instantaneously unless the lively prose is there to mask it and make you immersed rather than thinking - and here that lively prose is missing so instead you get to think about the book and all these absurd things start niggling badly

Will do one more full read and then a full review, but so far Islanders is a clever but sterile book that is far off from the huge achievements of The Affirmation and The Glamour


After a reread of the novel intertwined with the more dramatic The Dream Archipelago to which episodes of The Islanders are prequels, sequels or just related, I have to say that together the two are indeed superb, but this novel - which is not really a novel in many ways after all- really needs the collection for full appreciation.

Will have the full review of both soon and will c/p it on the Dream Archipelago page too

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I've mulled this over for a day wondering what to rate this book. This is the third book in Christopher Priest's Dream Archipelago world, and it's a world that is becoming familiar and which I enjoy returning to.

However, having read the first two books - The Affirmation and the Dream Archipelago - and found them to be page-turners for me, this book did not have quite the same effect. I found it a little bit difficult to get really immersed in for the first third or so, possibly because so many of the "chapters" are very short. What makes this book unique, though, is that each chapter in itself serves as its own entry in a Gazette of the islands. Some of these entries are short stories (which I usually found quite engrossing), while other entries are little more than a description of one of the islands with no characters in particular. The entries that were more descriptive was when I found myself becoming disengaged.

Not being the page-turner that I found the first two books to be doesn't mean I didn't enjoy this book. Far from it, in fact. What I loved most about this book was getting background stories on some of the characters met in the previous books. Also, the story line about the murder of the mime in the theater I found particularly good - creepy and a bit unsettling.

The structure of the book is unique and made for a non-linear puzzle where bits of info that you read in a previous chapter suddenly becomes more enlightening as further bits of info are dropped elsewhere in the book. For that, along with the further background on previously met characters makes me want to give this book 4+ stars. However, I can't overlook the fact that I just wasn't engrossed some of the time and found bits that I could have done without. The descriptive island entries? I guess those were the scenery. I wanted the people and action, though.

So, I think I'll give this 3.5 stars, not quite the 4 that I rated the first two books.

[Genevieve · Rating 5 out of 5]

The pact we make as readers of fiction is willful suspension of disbelief. In The Islanders, Christopher Priest has come up with new ways to make even that literary pact suspect. As one friend put it, "he's not just f*cking with you but with your ontological certainty." Trying to write a thoughtful review of this Rubik's Cube of a book was as difficult as trying to unravel the narrative itself. As I was reading, I kept hearing the Twilight Zone theme song in my head, and I had this low-grade paranoia that the islands I was reading about were much more than they seemed.

The premise: Priest's mind-bending book is about an imaginary grouping of islands, the Dream Archipelago, located in the Midway Sea that separates two larger land masses. At the outset, the islands seem like a hunky-dory Switzerland-like zone. The islands are peaceful and independent, having signed a historic and binding Covenant that is revered like the Magna Carta. Most importantly, the agreement assures the islands' neutrality in international affairs and protects the Archipelago from the warring shenanigans of their landlocked neighbors to the north. But this is a strange and contradictory novel and even the Covenant can't stop the more insidious forms of turmoil that emerge. And there are lots.

The book is made up of thirty or so sections that alternate between oddball travelogue profiles of the various islands—flora and fauna, climate, best times to visit, the currency used, etc.—and short stories that introduce us to several of the island natives. These characters include: a mime performer named Commis who is the victim in what may have been murder or a horrible accident; a Banksy-like guerilla artist named Jordenn Yo who turns mountain bedrock into giant art installations; Esla Caurer, a social reformer who later becomes canonized by some locals for allegedly performing miracles—of which she strangely has no knowledge and denies; Esphoven Muy, a kind of philosopher-meteorologist who categories the various winds that blow over the area; Chaster Kammeston, author of the book's Foreword and a reclusive novelist who appears later in the book and may or may not be involved in the aforementioned murder (or is it his lookalike brother?!); and Dryd Bathurst, a handsome charismatic landscape painter and portrait artist.

The trickiest part about reading The Islanders is trying to sift through these profiles and characters to find *the* story. This is an novel after all, if a nonlinear, fragmented one. One narrative thread that emerges early on is the account of a gruesome but mysterious death. It is first shown via a transcript of a confession from a man who allegedly committed the violent act. The man is later convicted and executed. We learn more about the victim from a first-hand account of a student who was working in the theater where the incident took place. Later another story reveals that the student wasn't who he said he was. And so on. Priest shows us these puzzle pieces, and then turns around and casts doubt on the pieces we've put together. We learn more but know less. Tricksy.

The archipelago setting alone gives us the contradictory notions of isolation and interconnectedness. (Are all men islands, or is no man an island, as John Donne argued?) Account after account, we see that the characters themselves are their own inscrutable island chains. They are emotionally isolated and yet hyper aware of others around them. On the island of Meequa, a cartographer goes down to the beach every night and looks out across a shallow strait, toward a smaller island called Tremm. Her boyfriend who worked on Tremm has disappeared. To complicate matters, Tremm is off-limits, having been requisitioned by one of the mainland militaries. (So much for the Covenant!) The pairings—both Meequa/Trem and the couple—become a metaphor for the fractured relationships throughout the book. Adding to this freaky mix, there are frequent references to doubles and secret identities. Characters end up having lookalikes, or they lie about who they said they were. This 'twining' effect is reinforced in the way the islands always have two names (an official name and the patois name or local name) and in the way different island grouping have similar locations (example: The Torquis island group, located at coordinates 44N - 49N and 23W - 27W, is a mirror of the Torquils island group, located at 23S - 27S and 44E - 49E).

See, Twilight Zone, didn't I tell you?

Priest is a science fiction author who is widely known for books that play with illusion and unreliability. Like the illusionists in his earlier work The Prestige, Priest is a cunning underminer of assumptions and conditions. The Islanders thrills by throwing you off balance in the same way. It's an icy burn of a read but not a slog. The book is simply told (the prose is quite flat actually), yet complex in concept and structure, full of shifting shadows and smoke and mirrors. Something deep and seismic is going on here. Even now I'm not sure what it is exactly but I know it's there. So don't think too hard when you read this book (though you probably will). When you arrive on the islands, toss out your compass and enjoy the tour.

[Miglė · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fragmentiška, svajinga mokslinė fantastika, parašyta kaip kelionių vadovas po didžiulį archipelagą. Gal kiek primena Italo Calvino Nematomi miestai, bet sci-fi elementai prideda lengvumo ir nepretenzingumo. Tiesa, ir tie sci-fi elementai nelabai ryškūs, eksplicitiškai neaiškinami, daugiau pasirodantys kaip automatinės prielaidos apie pasaulį (laiko vortexai, paslaptingi bokštai...). Iš esmės atrodo, kad autorius parašė kelis apsakymus, o aplink juos sukūrė lyg ir pasaulį. Salų aprašymuose vis pasikartoja keli personažai ir jų persipynusios istorijos. Dauguma tų personažų yra menininkai, o kurianti ir destruktyvi meno galia yra svarbi knygos tema, kuri man buvo ir žavi, ir vietomis truputį erzino romantiniu naivumu.

[Beige · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I was rating solely on creativity, I'd have to give this 5 stars. However, I rate for enjoyment, so 4 it is.

Mr. Priest is a literary maverick. The format is brilliant; a travel guide for another world of mostly islands that dips into historical letters and essays. Most of which can be found on display in museums around the Archipelagos. Through them, we learn of the work and mysterious personal lives of vartiety of artists, writers and scientists.

My favourite part were the descriptions of the art. They appeared to be a product of Priest's imagination and not simply a mirror of our world as the island cultures appeared to be. In our world, land art is impermanent and nature reclaims it quickly or eventually. In Priest's world it is much more permanent: delightfully and destructively so.

At one point, one of the characters wrote a play in which she later stated....

"if the four acts of Autumn were performed in reverse order, certain scenes were removed, the music was omitted, and all the characters were played by actors of the opposite sex, then the play’s real meaning would be revealed.

I wondered if this might be a cipher for the book itself. But alas, that is not the case. I wondered if I had missed other clues as the threads of the story petered out. But you are left with a variety of truths and all of them as likely as the other.

Overall, I admired it more than enjoyed it. I will give Mr. Priest another go before I take my last ferry ride.


Art that came to mind while reading.....

Surrounded Islands by Christo and Jean-Claude



Round Earth by Tanya Preminger

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Islanders is a fascinating gazetteer to Priest's fictional Dream Archipelago—the sprawling network of islands first introduced in The Affirmation. It's a curious blend of rather straightforward travel writing with narrative in the form of 'true crime,' biography, memoir, and journal. As we are guided through the various islands by a diverse chorus of voices, tangential connections grow like tendrils between the entries. Characters develop, disappear, and reappear. A mystery slowly materializes, its facts hovering in constant flux. Hints of scandal and secretive romances are revealed. The entries juxtapose renegade artists and reclusive writers with a driven social reformer. The politics and social structure of the islands receive both subtle and glaring critique. Nothing really resolves itself. All the threads are left rippling in the infamous island winds, even as the ghost of installation artist Jordenn Yo harnesses them yet again to breathe into one of her singing tunnels. Priest's writing voice is even and cerebral, yet so wholly convincing in its explication of his universe that it's easy to be lulled into absorption. Reading The Affirmation first is not required although certainly helps stoke the intrigue, while at the same time providing a base of familiarity.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 Stars

This is a very unusual book, and a tough one to review. It is really a book of short stories that all feature Islands. There are some very good stories in here that focus on lots of wind. Or, they feature crazy and cool killer insects. Or, they feature lots of wind. There is a lot of history told and some are good, but in the end, I found much of this book to be forgettable... Read it for the amazing writing, but leave your expectations at the door.

[Anton]

a tour-de-force of worldbuilding and excellent writing...but for my tastes somewhat aimless. I found myself nodding off after the first 40%. so... moving on. Tried, not for me.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Islanders
Christopher Priest
Read it in used Hardback off Amazon, like new condition, for 86 cents, which should have probably been a big red flag. Weighing in at 342 pages.

OTC Book clubs March selection, the first selection by a new member this year, cheers all around to her. In the spirit of our book club, she selected a title that she hadn't read and knew only at surface level, and under 400 pages; The Islanders by Christopher Priest. Mr. Priest is a distinguished author with a lot of very successful publications, most notable being The Prestige, which was later turned into a major motion picture. Apparently, this is Mr. Priests first release in about nine years and has won him the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel in 2011, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 2012, among others.

The Islanders is hawked here on GoodReads as "A tale of murder, artistic rivalry, and literary trickery; a Chinese puzzle of a novel where nothing is quite what it seems; a narrator whose agenda is artful and subtle; a narrative that pulls you in and plays an elegant game with you. The Dream Archipelago is a vast network of islands." I suppose it is, in a way, all of those things, but after completing it, I felt it was more simply just a vast network of islands known as the Dream Archipelago with a peppering here and there of those other things. In reality, the other things seem to exist so that the reader doesn't simply discard the book as an imagination orgasm without any value content. Which I argue it is.

-potential spoilers below-

For myself and many other readers participating in our March selection, we were flabbergasted. In short, the sub-plots of the book, which lay hidden in-between repetitive and boring chapters of simple island geography including wind direction, etc., are inconclusive. Mr. Priest has woven an interesting tapestry of people and things that happen to them in a world that doesn't make a lot of sense with no identifiable point or conclusion leaving us all feel like we just got swindled. The longest and most complete story spliced in the book is that of a murder mystery of a mime. I'm just going to say it, the death of the mime may or may not be perpetrated by the fictional writer of the book, again, it isn't really conclusive and you don't find out the real truth of what happened to the mime by the end of the book. A lot of the other sub stories in the book are a lot of the same way, interesting but inconclusive.

Perhaps this is just a first of what he hopes to turn into a series, in which maybe, all of the stories will eventually intertwine and conclude. Maybe. But it's going to be hard to convince us hungry readers to try.

So with a scoring system of 1-10 with 1 being a despicable waste of paper and a 10 for holy sacrament, how did OTC bookclub receive The Islanders?

Th3ee: 3
Ash-Hail to the King-ly: 2
Dust: 2
G$$: 5
Hylen: 3
SS: 3
Boozy Coug: 4
Baby Deer: 6
Magoo: 5

So nine completed with an average of 3.6/10.

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

On whatever world it exists, the Dream Archipelago is a band of thousands of islands circumnavigating the equator and extending into both the northern and southern temperate zones. Many of the islands are unnamed, and the naming conventions can be misleading since each island has both a standard name and a name in the local patois. Mapping the islands is essentially impossible due to something called the temporal vortices. The vortices were first discovered when sea and air travelers came to realize that when using standard navigational tools the islands they departed from where not always in the same location when they returned. Those who have mastered these shifts can use the vortices as short cuts when traveling by air, but most travel is done by short range ferries. The book contains an effort to explain this phenomenon which frankly did me little good.

The Islanders is presented as a gazetteer of the archipelago, with each chapter part of an alphabetical listing of major or in some cases simply curious islands. But notice the title emphasizes inhabitants not geography. Recurring characters establish narrative threads throughout the book, although the threads can become tattered loose ends. So is Priest's book a novel in the form of a gazetteer? That seems like a pretty good description. Calling something an "experimental novel" sounds old-fashioned at this late date. This is not a traditional novel, but it is certainly a fiction, a term that emphasizes its Borgesian tendencies. There is romance, murder, monsters, ancient evil, war, and civil unrest, all incidents told against a background where the social structures combine a form of "benign medieval feudal state" alongside high-tech industries and generous wi-fi connections.

I confess I was more impressed by Priest's novel than I was enthralled or entertained by it. Right up to the last chapter I looked forward to discovering how he would tie together his disparate plot lines. Having now read reviews of the book I see I was playing a fool's game with an author not known for tying things together. Which is fine. We are, after all, in the Dream Archipelago. I am now content not to know who murdered the mime Comiss, or why characters who die in the course of the story still make an appearance in what I feel certain is a chronologically later episode. It must be those temporal vortices at work.

[Ignacio · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Islanders es una evolución de lo que Priest ya había desplegado en La separación. Tras contar una misma historia desde diferentes testimonios prácticamente imposibles de casar, da un salto hacia adelante y reúne dentro de un libro un cúmulo de información más o menos convergente sobre un lugar y una serie de personajes que han vivido en él. Así, The Islanders toma la forma de una heterodoxa guía turística del Archipiélago del Sueño en la cual cada capítulo describe lo que se puede encontrar en una isla o un grupo de islas del archipiélago; su clima, su paisaje, su historia, su relación con las dos grandes potencias en guerra en el continente al norte… Y en ese esquema de información más o menos objetiva integra historias que, llegado cierto punto, interactúan entre sí. O no.

En algún punto intermedio entre la novela hipertextual y la colección de relatos, el autor de El mundo invertido se da un impúdico autohomenaje durante el cual toca la mayoría de temas a los que se ha entregado durante sus cincuenta años de carrera: su inquietud por la veracidad de los narradores; cómo afectan a la vida las obsesiones y las crisis de identidad; el doble y todas las confusiones asociadas a su figura; la inmigración y el cinismo con el cual se trata en nuestro viejo mundo… Tampoco se limita a retornar a una geografía específica o un trasfondo común a La afirmación, “La negación”, “Rameras” o “El observado”. Priest siembra referencias, explícitas e implícitas, a gran parte de su obra hasta el punto de, por ejemplo, presentar una nueva versión de "El hombre transportado", el truco de magia central de El prestigio, esta vez con el sobrenombre de “The Lady Vanishes” (una de las películas más divertidas de Hitchcock).

No es necesario ser un avezado Priestólogo para apreciar las virtudes de The Islanders. Estamos ante una especie de huevos de pascua que enriquecen las múltiples historias que conforman el conjunto. Aun así, o quizás sólo por eso, recomendaría este libro a un lector familiarizado con las obras más importantes de este autor. Aun apreciando sus virtudes la impresión de su lectura queda lejos de sus grandes títulos.

[Brian Koser · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Dream Archipelago" really sums it up: even while learning about the world and the characters, the focus is always on the islands, while the (seemingly?) conflicting facts presented give the book a dreamlike quality. I can't help but compare it to Calvino's Invisible Cities; Islanders is much less poetic but much more connected, although still lacking a traditional plot.

I did expect to find out more about certain characters. E.g., for as many times as Dryd Bathurst pops up, I expected a big reveal or at least that he would tie into another character's story more. I also expected Moylita Kaine to come up again. Really though, I wanted more even from the characters that got the most attention.

My theory about Chaster Kammeston: I think Chaster invented Wolter. Outside of his supposed journal, the only appearance of Wolter is when Caurer attends Chaster's supposed funeral;
I think that was actually Chaster. With Chaster still alive he's able to author the foreword "posthumously". Although that's a slippery rabbit hole because, assuming Chaster wrote "The Islanders" (the dedication "To Esla"
(the first fictional dedication I've seen?) is the strongest evidence), if he made up some sections, can we assume he didn't make up everything?

My favorite theory is yakinikuman's: Inhabitants of Reever discovered that every time you circumnavigate the island, it changes. Perhaps the "temporal vertices" of the Dream Archipelago let you travel between parallel universes. According to yakinikuman, "The main murder mystery is the primary plotline of the book in 'our' universe; the other interesting threads not resolved are bits of the main plotline in some other universes."

Adrian Hon's speculations are also worth a look after reading the book.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Echoing Le Guin and Calvino Is This Novel Cloaked as a Travel Guide

“The Islanders” is a remarkable realistic speculative fiction tale about a murder, artistic rivalry and literary deception written by one of the finest writers writing now in any genre in the English language; eminent Briton Christopher Priest. This is a Rubik’s Cube of a novel, recounting the main plot points in a literary style reminiscent, in places, of Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon”, and one that evokes early Ursula Le Guin (e. g. “Earthsea” and early “Ekumen” novels such as “The Left Hand of Darkness”) and Italo Calvino (“Invisible Cities”) in its expressive, descriptive, usage of language. Priest’s prose may also remind readers of Thomas Bernhard’s, especially with regards to its emphasis on visual art and art history. Pretending to be a “travel guide” to the Dream Archipelago, what Priest has wrought instead is a short story collection, with each tale merely a chapter in his intricately detailed novel, with a rather deceptive introduction to this “travel guide” from one of the protagonists, who may have a secret history pertaining to the murder itself. Readers will encounter scenes replete with unspeakable horror and memorable romance during their “visits” to each of the Dream Archipelago islands, in literary styles ranging from first person to almost impersonal third person narrative. Without a doubt, “The Islanders” demonstrates why Priest is one of the most elegant literary stylists writing today in the English language, and reaffirms his status as among the most noteworthy contributors to contemporary Anglo-American fiction irrespective of genre.

[J.P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is for certain a strangely written book. Most of the time I can tell by a publisher’s blurb if I should rush and buy it. But every now and then a novel comes out that keeps me humble and I think afterwards I could have waited. This is one of them.
For the most part, The Islanders reads like a bunch of travel brochures. Some parts just deal with the climate of the islands. Others focus only on certain features. So there is little continuity and it feels more like a short story collection. There are no main characters and not much of a plot. To use an appropriate metaphor, a person gets the feeling the boat they were waiting for has sailed.
There are a few chapters that were very well done, especially one dealing with a nasty insect and the particular island it originated from. This location is destined never to become a tourist attraction.
Christopher Priest is definitely an above average writer but his approach here is too unusual. I did find it interesting although disjointed. If you’ve never read anything by the author I would recommend starting with The Prestige.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can happily pick up anything by this author and know I'm going to get something out of it. So, at a loose end one day for something to read, I picked this up with high expectations.

The book has a somewhat strange narrative structure that is a travel guide to the imaginary sprawling archipelago in an ocean between two warring continents. These island guides are punctuated by a series of interconnected stories of featuring a range of interesting, artistic and enigmatic characters.

The archipelago itself is the strangest character of all, defying all attempts to map and define it. Strange geological, meteorological and sometimes even super natural phenomenon abound and the islands themselves differ strongly from one another both physically and sociologically. There is a counter culture of tunnellers who pursue their aims relentlessly, sometimes to the point of an islands destruction and they are hounded from island to island. All this and much more going on that make for a strange novel indeed, set in a world which is seemingly a distorted mirror of our own and our own inner psyche.

Perhaps it was a little too diffuse to really work for me as much as most of his other works have but still worth a read. Probably not a best place to start though...

[Bryan Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author has constructed a labyrinth. It disorients you to start with, but once you begin to get the lie of the land, it becomes fascinating. You get pointed in various directions, which the author's narrative and world-building skills make you happy to follow, even though you realise you are being toyed with, until he finally lets you out, and you think “Well, that was fun, but is that it?” I think it is worth the final disappointment to enjoy the fun.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chaster Kammeston, the island of Piqay's most renowned novelist, disclaims in his Introduction to Christopher Priest's The Islanders that

As for this book, I declare that it will do no harm.
It is in fact to be commended. It is a typical island enterprise: it is incomplete, a bit muddled, and it wants to be liked.
—p.6

I did like The Islanders, though perhaps not quite as much as it wanted to be liked. Like a ferry trip through the Dream Archipelago it describes, this book is often slow going, or at least it was for me.

Ostensibly, The Islanders is a gazetteer, an alphabetical list of notable islands in the Dream Archipelago, caught between two warring polar continents on a watery world that is most definitely not our own, although it shares many characteristics with our Earth. Television; military drones; the Internet; "international waters"—all logically parallel concepts, but sometimes Priest's use of such elements ends up being too jarringly familiar.

But then, just when one starts to long for a bit more strangeness, Christopher Priest delivers: time vortices, tunnelers, and tumbledown towers that trap travelers in terror are just three of the features that make the Dream Archipelago unique.

For The Islanders is not just a dry catalog of imaginary geographies, not just a parody of the CIA's The World Factbook—no, it's more of an album full of snapshots from a fantasy vacation (or, rather, a lifetime full of fantasy vacations) involving a few central characters—like Kammeston, the philosopher Esla Caurer, the artist Dryd Bathurst, Commis the murdered mime—all of whom become signposts pointing to the vast and mysterious regions beyond their individual lives, via vivid vignettes that, when read in succession, slowly build up a coherent view of Priest's multifaceted world.

And for that achievement, it's possible to forgive many things—even the word cloud (http://www.wordle.net/) that's so five years ago on the back of the dust jacket. At least it's vaguely island-shaped...

[Петър Панчев · Rating 4 out of 5]

Архипелагът на сънищата в туристически справочник
Цялото ревю тук: http://knijenpetar.blogspot.bg/2015/1...

Туристически справочник звучи добре, ако се замисли човек. И наистина – началото на тази объркваща книга започва да обрисува остров след остров в т.н. Архипелаг на сънищата. Появява се Частър Каместън и в един обстоен увод ни бомбандира с информация какво ни чака през следващите 350 страници. Всички острови са подредени по азбучен ред, за да е ясно, че ако на някой случайно се озове примерно на Манлейл и е сложил в раницата си този том, лесно може да разбере какво да очаква и кои забележителности за посети. Ако пък ви завее някой от хилядите видове ветрове, няма да се притеснявате, защото може да направите справка при метеоролозите, които са систематизирали и наименували всички до един и продължават да развиват способите си за постигане на научна достоверност. Откачена работа, казвам ви! В този момент някои читатели могат да подготвят куфарите и да се обаждат на авиокомпанията, за да си резервират билети. Да, островите са фантастични, но някъде там трябва да я има и фантастиката.

„Островитяни“ („Август“, 2013, с превод на Петър Тушков) е необичайно предизвикателство за несвикналите с главоблъсканиците и предаването на информация по нетрадиционен начин. Истинска енигма за клетия читател. На мен ми бяха достатъчни трийсетина страници, за да развея бялото знаме и още петдесетина, за да се върна отново на палубата – настръхнал, но готов за нелеката борба с останалите триста. И постепенно нещата взеха да си идват по местата. Ако не знаете кой е Кристофър Прийст, веднага да запълните този пропуск.

Архипелагът на сънищата има необикновена география, информацията за която е пръсната из цялата книга. (Продължава в блога: http://knijenpetar.blogspot.bg/2015/1...)

[Marion · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my very first Christopher Priest read.

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Priest in June 2012, he was invited to a book festival I worked at, and he was presenting his new book (The Islanders). Being a broke student, I couldn't afford the 20€ the bookseller was requiring of me to buy the book (you'd think working pro bono for the festival I'd have some kind of discount right? But nooo). I was really annoyed at it, so when a few months ago I found the book for 9€, I grabbed it and didn't let go.

I know for reputation that Christopher Priest is a Sci-Fi (sort of) author, but apart from the very enigmatic blurb featured on the cover, I had no idea what The Islanders was about, and to be absolutely honest, I still don't.

This book gives you some kind of a tour guide for a fictitious archipelago on a fictitious earth. Some of the chapters are description of the islands, their population, currency used, mountains, etc., some chapters are very long and focus on a specific story that happened on that island. Those long chapters were what kept me coming for more.

While the short descriptive chapters were sometimes quite boring (sorry Mr Priest), I found myself absolutely captivated by the longer chapters which encapsulated incredible stories and characters. They were real page turners and sometimes I was quite disappointed when they finally ended. I also loved finding out some connections between the islands and characters, a name I had read in a chapter popping out in an other about 10 chapters later.

[Ben De Bono · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even by Christopher Priest standards this one is tough to review. On the one hand, it's a book you don't want to know too much about going in as the process of discovery is a large part of its greatness. On the other, without some word of explanation about what you're reading potential readers, especially those new to Priest, may be turned off.

Perhaps the best thing to say is that whether you're a veteran to Priest's work or a newcomer, it's imperative to go into The Islanders with an open mind. Part of the fun with Priest's work, especially in this case, is figuring out what exactly it is you're reading. This isn't a traditional novel by any stretch of the imagination, in fact it might not be a novel at all. Even after finishing it, I'm not remotely sure how to classify it.

If that sounds cryptic it's only because this labyrinthine book demands a cryptic description. What I can say is that this book is by turns beautiful, brilliant, perplexing and fascinating. As I said before, go in with an open mind. Pay VERY close attention, especially to names. You may not ever be quite sure what it is you're reading, but hopefully you'll come away enjoying The Islanders as much as I did.