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Indoctrinaire
Deep in the Advanced Technique Concentration, Wentik created a mind-altering drug. Suddenly he is transported to the jungles of Brazil in the 22nd century and a world devastated by nuclear war and poison gas.
Only South America survived but even here 'The Disturbances' create havoc. Can Wentik find a way back? For himself? And all of humanity?
Only South America survived but even here 'The Disturbances' create havoc. Can Wentik find a way back? For himself? And all of humanity?
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
7 people are currently reading
563 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Priest
129 books1,079 followersChristopher 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 39 reviews
June 30, 2023
Well, it looks as if everyone here hates this book but ME, which is typical. It has its flaws, but it was Priest's debut, and the finesse it lacks in its writing and characterization is made up by its startling ideas and creativity. This novel HAUNTED me; one particular scene disturbed me so much I had trouble sleeping the night I read it. It is also (unlike some of his later novels) a bona fide page-turner, totally suspenseful and unpredictable. I've read nearly all his novels written before 1990, and this one is second only to "The Inverted World" as far as I'm concerned.
Reread 3½ years later, I am still convinced this is Priest's second-best novel and I'm changing the star rating from 4 to 5.
Reread 3½ years later, I am still convinced this is Priest's second-best novel and I'm changing the star rating from 4 to 5.
June 26, 2021
This was Christopher Priest's first novel, written in his late twenties and, frankly, a disappointment when compared to his later work. The first half was so obscure (though the bulk of it was well explained in the second half) and heavy handed that I almost gave up on it.
The second half saves it somewhat but only as a more conventional science fiction story expressing the understandable anxieties of the time. If we think young people have it rough today (they do), think back to the prospect of the complete nuclear extermination of our islands within minutes.
The leaden writing and 'jumpy' narrative are forgivable in a young man's first novel (Graham Greene's early efforts were worse) but the interest in the novel is mostly as an introduction to themes that would emerge to be expressed later with more skill.
Derivative aspects include the pseudo-Ballardian sojourn in a jungle-reached jail and the references to psychological breakdown and torture very much of its time in the first half. The second half could be any rollicking time travel novella from the genre magazines of the decades before.
In my remembrance, 'Fugue for a Darkening Island' (1972, not the later 'expurgated' version), his next novel, was a startling work which looked at national apocalypse from another angle - the effects of uncontrolled mass migration. The second novel seemed to learn much from the first.
The nuclear aspect, central to 'Indoctrinaire', when seen in the context of 'Fugue', looks less important now. What really matters is the anxiety about protecting the family, weak in a world of political forces out of our control, when the world is falling apart for one reason or another.
His first two books extrapolate concerns of the 1960s (nuclear war and race) into science fantasy. Yet I find him (like a superforecaster) accidentally prescient about the time to come as only a science fiction writer can be.
There is here an affection for an England under threat (shades of HG Wells), an inherent anxiety about the collapse of society, a fascination with jumping through time and a complicated psychology. It is a shame that it is not very well written.
August 13, 2015
I've been reading all my younger self's sci-fi library over the last couple of years. Beginning with the worst (Asimov's Foundation trilogy .. yup, it's really poor) and saving this towards the end, as I remembered it as being really really good.
Alas for my younger self! It turns out - in the end - to be a rather ordinary sci-fi novel. I say "in the end" because the first part, titled "The Jail", is easily the best part about it. Mysterious, unexplained, slightly surreal, oppressive - that section deserves 4 stars.
However, once it moves past that first section into the final two, a 'reveal' is necessary in order to take the story on, and it's that 'reveal' which brings the whole thing down to Planet Mundane and leaves you wishing you'd never left The Jail.
So then I reached the "Author's Note" at the end, and all became clear. 'The Jail' was published as two separate short stories originally, and Michael Moorcock persuaded him to enlarge the theme and make a novel out of it. Oh Michael! Naughty.
I won't say anything about the plot - it's all rather tired and hackneyed in the end, but if you feel strong minded enough to read 'The Jail' on its own and then leave the rest to your imagination, you'll probably end up with a better novel than Indoctrinaire . 2-star is a little harsh - 2 and a half, exactly 50%, would be more fair.
Alas for my younger self! It turns out - in the end - to be a rather ordinary sci-fi novel. I say "in the end" because the first part, titled "The Jail", is easily the best part about it. Mysterious, unexplained, slightly surreal, oppressive - that section deserves 4 stars.
However, once it moves past that first section into the final two, a 'reveal' is necessary in order to take the story on, and it's that 'reveal' which brings the whole thing down to Planet Mundane and leaves you wishing you'd never left The Jail.
So then I reached the "Author's Note" at the end, and all became clear. 'The Jail' was published as two separate short stories originally, and Michael Moorcock persuaded him to enlarge the theme and make a novel out of it. Oh Michael! Naughty.
I won't say anything about the plot - it's all rather tired and hackneyed in the end, but if you feel strong minded enough to read 'The Jail' on its own and then leave the rest to your imagination, you'll probably end up with a better novel than Indoctrinaire . 2-star is a little harsh - 2 and a half, exactly 50%, would be more fair.
March 18, 2016
En un futuro cercano (teniendo en cuenta que el libro se publicó en 1970), el científico Elias Wentik trabaja en la Antártida experimentando con una sustancia que afecta el cerebro. Sin embargo, es requerido por el gobierno estadounidense, y debe trasladarse a Brasil junto a los agentes Astourde y Musgrave y un grupo de soldados. Tras un viaje a través de la selva, se le informa que ha sido trasladado doscientos años en el futuro.
‘Indoctrinario’ (Indoctrinaire, 1970), fue la primera novela escrita por el británico Christopher Priest, del que tan buenas obras he disfrutado. En este caso se trata de una historia un tanto extraña, sobre todo en su primera mitad, que es la que más me ha gustado, con esa misteriosa cárcel y el excéntrico comportamiento de ciertos personajes. Hay un par de elementos realmente extraños, ilógicos, que me han parecido excepcionales. No es la mejor obra de Priest, pero es una gran novela.
‘Indoctrinario’ (Indoctrinaire, 1970), fue la primera novela escrita por el británico Christopher Priest, del que tan buenas obras he disfrutado. En este caso se trata de una historia un tanto extraña, sobre todo en su primera mitad, que es la que más me ha gustado, con esa misteriosa cárcel y el excéntrico comportamiento de ciertos personajes. Hay un par de elementos realmente extraños, ilógicos, que me han parecido excepcionales. No es la mejor obra de Priest, pero es una gran novela.
August 25, 2013
Christopher Priest's debut novel is very much a product of its times, the early 1970's, which might lead you to say, "Duh, look at the publication date, Ralphie." Well, yes, I will give you that, since it does state quite clearly that Harper & Row published it September 1970, that Pocket Books published it October 1971 (with a nice Richard Powers wraparound cover, I might add). However, I would submit there were other books published about the same time (Day of the Jackal, The Exorcist, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Love Story, and The Lathe of Heaven, to name but a few) that were also products of their times, but have aged fairly well, or not at all.
For those who did not live through the times (and those too stoned at the time to recall anything) the period leading into the 1970's was fraught with paranoia, conspiracies, cynicism, cold war fears, dangerous drug experimentation (as opposed to drug usage), and suspicions that the government was actively working to enslave and/or kill us. This novel is infused with all those traits, and the changing nature of the readership is the major contributing factor to the novel's decreasing relevancy. While the issues and concerns remain much the same now as then, the difference, I think, is that we were more aware of it then, less inured to the prospect, certainly not cheering the government on as they stiffed us. I think this sea-change of society is much more important to the dating of the novel than is the change in the international politics that form a major element in the plot, for the book could be easily revised, substituting Muslims for Russians...until the next bugaboo appears over the political horizon. Not so easily changed, however, is the dismal tone of the novel.
A British scientist working on a mind-altering drug in a secret lab under the Antarctic ice is whisked to the isolated Mato Grosso region of Brazil, to an area inexplicably free of jungle, in which a mysterious prison is the only structure. The largest portion of the novel is spent in this prison with the scientist interacting with an interrogator who might be insane. In this prison with its absurdities (an sculpted into an exterior wall and a hand growing from the center of a table) and traps (a psychologically sophisticated maze housed in a tumble-down shack) all the angst, anger and fear of the 1970's are distilled to toxic levels. The next section of the book concerns a future society that is remarkable mostly for its banality, which makes the preceding sections even more horrific. The final section of the book, the smallest, sets the scientist on a quest that is almost immediately poleaxed by capricious irony, ending in a mind-numbing dose of 1970's futility.
All that being said, the novel is still well worth reading, if only because it lets you see where a major British novelist started and how far he has come since then. Aside from that, it is valuable both for the insight provided upon the mindset of the time in which it was created, and perhaps also as an imperfect and cautionary mirror to our own times.
For those who did not live through the times (and those too stoned at the time to recall anything) the period leading into the 1970's was fraught with paranoia, conspiracies, cynicism, cold war fears, dangerous drug experimentation (as opposed to drug usage), and suspicions that the government was actively working to enslave and/or kill us. This novel is infused with all those traits, and the changing nature of the readership is the major contributing factor to the novel's decreasing relevancy. While the issues and concerns remain much the same now as then, the difference, I think, is that we were more aware of it then, less inured to the prospect, certainly not cheering the government on as they stiffed us. I think this sea-change of society is much more important to the dating of the novel than is the change in the international politics that form a major element in the plot, for the book could be easily revised, substituting Muslims for Russians...until the next bugaboo appears over the political horizon. Not so easily changed, however, is the dismal tone of the novel.
A British scientist working on a mind-altering drug in a secret lab under the Antarctic ice is whisked to the isolated Mato Grosso region of Brazil, to an area inexplicably free of jungle, in which a mysterious prison is the only structure. The largest portion of the novel is spent in this prison with the scientist interacting with an interrogator who might be insane. In this prison with its absurdities (an sculpted into an exterior wall and a hand growing from the center of a table) and traps (a psychologically sophisticated maze housed in a tumble-down shack) all the angst, anger and fear of the 1970's are distilled to toxic levels. The next section of the book concerns a future society that is remarkable mostly for its banality, which makes the preceding sections even more horrific. The final section of the book, the smallest, sets the scientist on a quest that is almost immediately poleaxed by capricious irony, ending in a mind-numbing dose of 1970's futility.
All that being said, the novel is still well worth reading, if only because it lets you see where a major British novelist started and how far he has come since then. Aside from that, it is valuable both for the insight provided upon the mindset of the time in which it was created, and perhaps also as an imperfect and cautionary mirror to our own times.
November 30, 2016
When I picked ‘Indoctrinaire’ off the library shelf, the shiny new edition concealed the original publication date of 1970. As with a great deal of science fiction from that era, it has not aged terribly well. Nonetheless, it does say some quite interesting things about the time in which it was written. A nuclear third world war is anticipated in 1989, triggered by Cuba invading the US (which seems extraordinarily far-fetched, although I’m no Cold War historian). Only South America survives, and remains prey to a mysterious mind-warping gas. Our narrator, Wentik, only learns these facts more than halfway through the book. In fact, the pacing is distinctly odd. The first half lacks even the semblance of exposition. Bizarre things randomly occur and for some reason Wentik doesn’t yell, “What the hell is happening?” constantly. A quote on the back likens these sequences to Kafka, which I think is overly generous. That said, there is an ingenious unpleasantness to certain elements, in particular the maze.
When events become clearer to the narrator, producing no surprise in anyone who has read the blurb, exposition suddenly predominates. A future world is conjured up in a somewhat flimsy but intermittently interesting fashion. I liked the image of a social scientist toying with a physical model of society, taking it apart and trying to slot it back together. This seemed a pleasantly literal manifestation of 1970s social engineering concepts. On the other hand, the future society seemed remarkably unimpressed by having invented time travel. They didn’t even seem to have considered or experimented with the possibilities of branching universes, nor thought about whether events are predestined. Well, the latter is touched upon later, but by Wentik not the scientists in charge of the actual time machine.
On balance, ‘Indoctrinaire’ is one of those science fiction novels that it’s much more interesting to think about than to actually read. Wentik, the lead character, is a cipher who comes complete with tedious sexist and racist attitudes. No other character is given much time or development; the few female characters barely get to say a word. Yet the concepts that underpin the story are compelling and the periodic touches of the surreal and horrible are very effective. Reading it also provides a useful case study in comparing under- and over-explained weirdness. On balance, I think the first under-explained half worked better, although the blurb radically undermined the sense of mystery. Once the over-explaining began, however, the lead character was able to be proactive in the face of dilemmas. Possibly the conclusion to be drawn here is that there’s a happy medium to be found. Anyway, I think I’ve made my point. It’s more fun to dissect this novel than to actually read it.
Of course, this perspective may be an after-effect of having just finished my PhD thesis.
When events become clearer to the narrator, producing no surprise in anyone who has read the blurb, exposition suddenly predominates. A future world is conjured up in a somewhat flimsy but intermittently interesting fashion. I liked the image of a social scientist toying with a physical model of society, taking it apart and trying to slot it back together. This seemed a pleasantly literal manifestation of 1970s social engineering concepts. On the other hand, the future society seemed remarkably unimpressed by having invented time travel. They didn’t even seem to have considered or experimented with the possibilities of branching universes, nor thought about whether events are predestined. Well, the latter is touched upon later, but by Wentik not the scientists in charge of the actual time machine.
On balance, ‘Indoctrinaire’ is one of those science fiction novels that it’s much more interesting to think about than to actually read. Wentik, the lead character, is a cipher who comes complete with tedious sexist and racist attitudes. No other character is given much time or development; the few female characters barely get to say a word. Yet the concepts that underpin the story are compelling and the periodic touches of the surreal and horrible are very effective. Reading it also provides a useful case study in comparing under- and over-explained weirdness. On balance, I think the first under-explained half worked better, although the blurb radically undermined the sense of mystery. Once the over-explaining began, however, the lead character was able to be proactive in the face of dilemmas. Possibly the conclusion to be drawn here is that there’s a happy medium to be found. Anyway, I think I’ve made my point. It’s more fun to dissect this novel than to actually read it.
Of course, this perspective may be an after-effect of having just finished my PhD thesis.
January 26, 2012
Thoroughly enjoyed this rather odd SF novel. Dr Wentik is working at a secret government location under the Antartic when he is approached by two men who take him to Brazil on other business. In fact he is then transported into the future - a couple of hundred years have passed as has nuclear war - and he discovers that the subject of his experiments was used as chemical warfare at that time. He has been brought to the future to find a cure...
Whilst the plot sounds simple enough, his arrival in the Brazil of the future is a complicated Kakfaesque scenario which initially feels at odds with the rest of the book (indeed, in this edition, an author's note at the end explains that the first 20,000 words were originally separate and unnconnected 10,000 word stories which explains a lot). Despite this, the dissociation is valid within the remainder of the plot, and whilst the ending feels a little rushed and improbable, the ideas and storytelling carry this along very well. Recommended.
Whilst the plot sounds simple enough, his arrival in the Brazil of the future is a complicated Kakfaesque scenario which initially feels at odds with the rest of the book (indeed, in this edition, an author's note at the end explains that the first 20,000 words were originally separate and unnconnected 10,000 word stories which explains a lot). Despite this, the dissociation is valid within the remainder of the plot, and whilst the ending feels a little rushed and improbable, the ideas and storytelling carry this along very well. Recommended.
July 5, 2025
This started out far more interesting than it ended up, and though it was only 160 pages, it would have benefited from a good 40-page cut. The writing was clunky and unfocused and the main character was pretty flat; don't go into this expecting The Prestige level of quality. There were some great moments of weirdness, but unfortunately they were all confined to the first half of the book. Not bad overall, but certainly not as nearly good as it could have been.
June 19, 2014
I'm not going to say much about the details, as the fun of this book is seeing whats going to happen next... it's a pretty wild ride. The main character, Dr. Wentik, is attempting to chemically re-create Pavlov's results chemically. He achieves results, but the subjects always die. He's suddenly called away from his lab under Antartica, supposedly by the American government, and ends up in Brazil in the future, among other things.
The writer, interestingly, totally predicted a particular section of the rain forest getting de-forested, which is pretty neat. The story is definitely a page turner, but I very much felt like this is only the 1st half. The ending is unclear, unsatisfying, and doesn't resolve a thing. The most obvious interpretation is extremely disappointing, while any other really requires a 2nd book which doesn't exist.
It's a pretty interesting psychological piece before that, though,and worth the read from that angle.
The writer, interestingly, totally predicted a particular section of the rain forest getting de-forested, which is pretty neat. The story is definitely a page turner, but I very much felt like this is only the 1st half. The ending is unclear, unsatisfying, and doesn't resolve a thing. The most obvious interpretation is extremely disappointing, while any other really requires a 2nd book which doesn't exist.
It's a pretty interesting psychological piece before that, though,and worth the read from that angle.
July 6, 2011
my god, this book was so boring...this was his first novel, which he revised for this edition, to take out "the clumsy prose". it must have been really awful before the revision. i have two more of his books, i sincerely hope they are better than this one.
June 16, 2020
Christopher Priest's first novel is a book of two parts. The first part lays out a "willfully obscure" premise: Elias Wentik, a British scientist experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs in a research outpost in Antarctica, is taken by U.S. government agents to a place in the Brazilian jungle. There he finds himself a prisoner in a surreal atmosphere, run by a paranoid bureaucrat in command of a group of men exhibiting bizarre behavior. Wentik attempts to decipher what is going on around him and the truth behind the vague accusations being thrown at him.
Then about halfway through the novel, the book's focus and pacing suddenly shift. The obscurity is displaced by a tighter plot that deciphers the events of the first part of the book, as Wentik learns the details of the mysterious plateau on which he was imprisoned and the reason for the bizarre behavior of the men. Looming over it all is a holocaust that will set humanity back by hundreds of years, one in which Wentik learns his discoveries play a small but enduring part. Here events proceed at a much more rapid clip before coming to an abrupt, almost rushed conclusion.
The dissonant approach of the two books reflects the novel's origins as a fix-up. As Priest explains in a short Author's Note at the end of the 1979 edition, the book began as two separate stories (entitled "The Interrogator" and "the Maze") that Priest wrote in the late 1960s. These cryptic works form the heart of the novel, and can make for frustrating reading given the lack of a context. This is provided later in the novel, the existence of which seems mainly to give readers an explanation of what they read. As is so often the case with fix-ups, the whole work does not cohere as well as it might have, and in the end proves less than the sum of its often imaginative parts.
Then about halfway through the novel, the book's focus and pacing suddenly shift. The obscurity is displaced by a tighter plot that deciphers the events of the first part of the book, as Wentik learns the details of the mysterious plateau on which he was imprisoned and the reason for the bizarre behavior of the men. Looming over it all is a holocaust that will set humanity back by hundreds of years, one in which Wentik learns his discoveries play a small but enduring part. Here events proceed at a much more rapid clip before coming to an abrupt, almost rushed conclusion.
The dissonant approach of the two books reflects the novel's origins as a fix-up. As Priest explains in a short Author's Note at the end of the 1979 edition, the book began as two separate stories (entitled "The Interrogator" and "the Maze") that Priest wrote in the late 1960s. These cryptic works form the heart of the novel, and can make for frustrating reading given the lack of a context. This is provided later in the novel, the existence of which seems mainly to give readers an explanation of what they read. As is so often the case with fix-ups, the whole work does not cohere as well as it might have, and in the end proves less than the sum of its often imaginative parts.
September 8, 2025
Another 3.5 round up to 4. I was so on board with this – it doesn’t dissolve like so many of the other late 60s/early 70s SF does, but I did feel Priest lost the thread a bit as it were in the third section. It starts off very strong – a bit of the Orwell 1984/Kafka vibe taken into the Amazon jungle and then things get weird. Time and reality are questioned and everyone is on some sort of drug. It’s not quite into Michael Moorcock or Atrocity Exhibition weirdness – though the Ballard influence is felt with the post-apocalyptic vibe and some of the descriptions of the jungle – but it does get weird. Priest’s characters accept the hallucinations and the ability to warp time so you’re in surrealism but not quite breaking the narrative totally that happens in some of the really druggy stuff from this time.
August 17, 2018
Christopher Priest’s debut is (I have read elsewhere) a revision of a novel which was expanded from a novella which was expanded from a couple of short stories.
Dr Wentik works on an undisclosed scientific project at a vast and secret laboratory beneath the Antarctic. Unexpectedly, he is taken away by a pair of mysterious strangers purporting to be employed by the government. Soon he finds himself trapped in a surreal distant future which he may have inadvertently helped to create.
If that sounds like a pretty bog standard sci-fi plot then that’s because it is, albeit leavened by a good deal of 1960s New Wave weirdness: an impossible maze; an organic hand growing from a wooden table. But in common with a lot of SF writing from that time, the characters are closer to chess pieces than to human beings and there is a heavy reliance on third act information dumps.
Dr Wentik works on an undisclosed scientific project at a vast and secret laboratory beneath the Antarctic. Unexpectedly, he is taken away by a pair of mysterious strangers purporting to be employed by the government. Soon he finds himself trapped in a surreal distant future which he may have inadvertently helped to create.
If that sounds like a pretty bog standard sci-fi plot then that’s because it is, albeit leavened by a good deal of 1960s New Wave weirdness: an impossible maze; an organic hand growing from a wooden table. But in common with a lot of SF writing from that time, the characters are closer to chess pieces than to human beings and there is a heavy reliance on third act information dumps.
April 15, 2025
#1 Priest: A dream in three acts
Indoctrinaire by Christopher Priest is a fascinating book divided into three parts that takes the reader on an unusual journey.
In the first part, The Jail, the narrative unfolds like a feverish dream, immersing us in the world of Elias Wentik. Transported from his research in an Antarctic facility, Wentik finds himself in the 22nd century, a world ravaged by nuclear war and an enigmatic poison gas, with South America being the lone survivor. This intriguing introduction immediately pulled me into the narrative, and alongside Wentik, I delved into the mysteries of this surreal future world. I won't reveal more about the plot, as the discovery was a unique and enjoyable aspect of the reading experience.
The second part introduces a completely different atmosphere. Here, tranquility and everyday life prevail, which was very unexpected but a partly necessary shift to untangle the puzzles from the previous section. However, it's the final part and its open-ended conclusion that left me with lingering uncertainties. This unexpected ending imparts a melancholic note to the book, and right after finishing it, I felt overwhelmed by the story, but in a profoundly positive way.
My rating for "Indoctrinaire" wavers between 4 and 5 stars, primarily because this is my first experience with Priest's work. I'm inclined to withhold a final 5-star rating, curious to see how his writing evolved over time.
Indoctrinaire by Christopher Priest is a fascinating book divided into three parts that takes the reader on an unusual journey.
In the first part, The Jail, the narrative unfolds like a feverish dream, immersing us in the world of Elias Wentik. Transported from his research in an Antarctic facility, Wentik finds himself in the 22nd century, a world ravaged by nuclear war and an enigmatic poison gas, with South America being the lone survivor. This intriguing introduction immediately pulled me into the narrative, and alongside Wentik, I delved into the mysteries of this surreal future world. I won't reveal more about the plot, as the discovery was a unique and enjoyable aspect of the reading experience.
The second part introduces a completely different atmosphere. Here, tranquility and everyday life prevail, which was very unexpected but a partly necessary shift to untangle the puzzles from the previous section. However, it's the final part and its open-ended conclusion that left me with lingering uncertainties. This unexpected ending imparts a melancholic note to the book, and right after finishing it, I felt overwhelmed by the story, but in a profoundly positive way.
My rating for "Indoctrinaire" wavers between 4 and 5 stars, primarily because this is my first experience with Priest's work. I'm inclined to withhold a final 5-star rating, curious to see how his writing evolved over time.
February 11, 2023
A debut novel for the ages: taut, surreal, disturbing; it fools around with familiar SF concepts only to viciously subvert them; sets up its readers’ expectations and then savagely demolishes them. Granted, a plot hole or two are floating around, and the prose style isn’t quite as polished as Priest would later prove himself capable of. But already, at the outset of his long, impressive and criminally under appreciated career, his key themes of identity, divergence, reality/unreality, perception and otherworldliness are being vigorously explored.
May 25, 2019
Il romanzo di esordio di Christopher Priest, non tradotto in Italia, permette interessanti riflessioni sulle tecniche narrative.
Uno scienziato che lavora in un misterioso centro di ricerca duecento metri sotto la calotta antartica viene prelevato da una coppia di ambigui e arroganti militari, per essere trasferito in un ancor più misterioso edificio nel Mato Grosso, caserma e centro di ricerca ma di fatto di detenzione: qui viene incarcerato, sottoposto a esperimenti psicologici, ma contemporaneamente riesce lui stesso a interrogare i suoi carcerieri. Tra gli esperimenti e le prove a cui viene sottoposto, un complicato labirinto, che resta nella memoria come uno dei più angoscianti nella fantascienza (il più allucinante resta quello di “Satellite proibito” di Budrys).
Solo tra le righe del serrato confronto psicologio tra carcerieri e carcerato si scopre che quella zona nella giungla, il distretto del Planalto, è una zona di spazio proiettata nel futuro: ma il romanzo non concede nulla alla suggestione tipica della fantascienza, e preferisce svilupparsi come incubo kafkiano, paragonabile alle atmosfere concentrazionarie e claustrofobiche di Disch.
Nella seconda parte, “The Hospital”, e nella terza “The Concentration”, tutti i misteri della prima (“The Jail”) vengono svelati: come in “Guerra al grande nulla”, c’è un anticlimax, un piombare da una situazione di mistero e allucinata tensione a una realtà quotidiana dove tutto viene spiegato. Il protagonista potrà così finalmente partire per una sua missione finale, che però si concluderà nel pessimismo tipico dei tardi anni ’60.
Il romanzo usa molti temi (la società futura, il viaggio nel tempo, la guerra atomica) ma quello che interessa davvero, e lo rende interessante ancor oggi, è lo studio delle tecniche di indottrinamento della popolazione, a cui il protagonista lavora: il suo obiettivo era sviluppare una sostanza che rendesse le persone condizionabili come cani di Pavlov, ma istantaneamente anziché attraverso le lunghe ripetizioni di stimoli utilizzate dallo scienziato russo.
La struttura del romanzo è insolita perché nato dalla fusione di due distinti racconti: fusione da un lato riuscita, perchè non è facile immaginare quali fossero i due racconti originali, ma che lascia la curiosità di chiedersi se non sarebbe meglio leggere direttamente quelli!
Uno scienziato che lavora in un misterioso centro di ricerca duecento metri sotto la calotta antartica viene prelevato da una coppia di ambigui e arroganti militari, per essere trasferito in un ancor più misterioso edificio nel Mato Grosso, caserma e centro di ricerca ma di fatto di detenzione: qui viene incarcerato, sottoposto a esperimenti psicologici, ma contemporaneamente riesce lui stesso a interrogare i suoi carcerieri. Tra gli esperimenti e le prove a cui viene sottoposto, un complicato labirinto, che resta nella memoria come uno dei più angoscianti nella fantascienza (il più allucinante resta quello di “Satellite proibito” di Budrys).
Solo tra le righe del serrato confronto psicologio tra carcerieri e carcerato si scopre che quella zona nella giungla, il distretto del Planalto, è una zona di spazio proiettata nel futuro: ma il romanzo non concede nulla alla suggestione tipica della fantascienza, e preferisce svilupparsi come incubo kafkiano, paragonabile alle atmosfere concentrazionarie e claustrofobiche di Disch.
Nella seconda parte, “The Hospital”, e nella terza “The Concentration”, tutti i misteri della prima (“The Jail”) vengono svelati: come in “Guerra al grande nulla”, c’è un anticlimax, un piombare da una situazione di mistero e allucinata tensione a una realtà quotidiana dove tutto viene spiegato. Il protagonista potrà così finalmente partire per una sua missione finale, che però si concluderà nel pessimismo tipico dei tardi anni ’60.
Il romanzo usa molti temi (la società futura, il viaggio nel tempo, la guerra atomica) ma quello che interessa davvero, e lo rende interessante ancor oggi, è lo studio delle tecniche di indottrinamento della popolazione, a cui il protagonista lavora: il suo obiettivo era sviluppare una sostanza che rendesse le persone condizionabili come cani di Pavlov, ma istantaneamente anziché attraverso le lunghe ripetizioni di stimoli utilizzate dallo scienziato russo.
La struttura del romanzo è insolita perché nato dalla fusione di due distinti racconti: fusione da un lato riuscita, perchè non è facile immaginare quali fossero i due racconti originali, ma che lascia la curiosità di chiedersi se non sarebbe meglio leggere direttamente quelli!
December 1, 2020
The first novel by Priest does not have fully realized voice yet and suffers from overwhelming Kafka influence, resulting in a a significant part spent describing a kind of Kafkian prison while the main story stays underdeveloped. At the same time the budding quality emerges from surrealistic details, the particular Priestian type of world out of joint - the one reachable from the real one and so close to it in almost everything that it takes awhile to recognize the difference. Often that difference is within the protagonists themselves.
Some parallels could be drawn with Philip K. Dick, since both of them question the reality and the humanity itself, but while Dick is looking for the generic answer, Priest stays rooted in humane and personal, almost romantic domain. Even when he is describing the future with super fast planes and helicopters it is with a closer sentiment to Herbert. G. Wells than anything modern. No wonder he wrote later The Inverted World and The Prestige.
Some parallels could be drawn with Philip K. Dick, since both of them question the reality and the humanity itself, but while Dick is looking for the generic answer, Priest stays rooted in humane and personal, almost romantic domain. Even when he is describing the future with super fast planes and helicopters it is with a closer sentiment to Herbert. G. Wells than anything modern. No wonder he wrote later The Inverted World and The Prestige.
November 16, 2019
I've read most of Christopher Priest's work since “The Prestige” and admire his sense of cognitive disruption. So I saw this early work from 1970 and thought I'd see what he did back then.
This short book (186 pages) is journeyman work. There are some continuity errors and awkward patchy plotting, but his interest in mental conditioning and interpersonal relationships is evident. One can see echoes of later themes of “what is going on here?” and “who is in charge?” The first part of the book, “The Jail” is reminiscent of the old British TV show “The Prisoner”, and could have been influenced by that since the show came out a few years earlier. But there was a lot of fiction of that time that dealt with similar issues of entrapment, use of mind-altering drugs, and questions of authority.
The book was mostly out of print over the last 30 years, although Gollancz brought out a trade paperback in 2014. If it wasn't by Priest, I don't think the story itself would have warranted a reprint. I read the Pocket Books copy from 1970 with the iconic Richard Powers cover.
This short book (186 pages) is journeyman work. There are some continuity errors and awkward patchy plotting, but his interest in mental conditioning and interpersonal relationships is evident. One can see echoes of later themes of “what is going on here?” and “who is in charge?” The first part of the book, “The Jail” is reminiscent of the old British TV show “The Prisoner”, and could have been influenced by that since the show came out a few years earlier. But there was a lot of fiction of that time that dealt with similar issues of entrapment, use of mind-altering drugs, and questions of authority.
The book was mostly out of print over the last 30 years, although Gollancz brought out a trade paperback in 2014. If it wasn't by Priest, I don't think the story itself would have warranted a reprint. I read the Pocket Books copy from 1970 with the iconic Richard Powers cover.
Want to read
November 14, 2025Christopher Priest read through 1/18
Cheating on your wife in a displacement field over 200 years in the future is OK.
This was both annoyingly conventional and delightfully surreal and strange in ways that feel pretty typical of British New Wave SF I've read so far. Important Science Man is contacted by two strangers to do something Important and suddenly finds himself embroiled in a Kafkaesque nightmare. It feels like the young Christopher Priest felt he had to get the narrative back on track at a certain point and wheel out the classic Science-Based Explanation for what is going on which feels out of touch with the more slipstream stuff I've read of his from later in his career. I would have quite happily read 100 more pages of wandering around a strange jail getting yelled at by a bureaucrat but you can't blame the guy for wanting an easy sell for his first published novel. I know things only get more interesting from here so I'm glad I put the time in to read this one and get a sense of how everything started.
Cheating on your wife in a displacement field over 200 years in the future is OK.
This was both annoyingly conventional and delightfully surreal and strange in ways that feel pretty typical of British New Wave SF I've read so far. Important Science Man is contacted by two strangers to do something Important and suddenly finds himself embroiled in a Kafkaesque nightmare. It feels like the young Christopher Priest felt he had to get the narrative back on track at a certain point and wheel out the classic Science-Based Explanation for what is going on which feels out of touch with the more slipstream stuff I've read of his from later in his career. I would have quite happily read 100 more pages of wandering around a strange jail getting yelled at by a bureaucrat but you can't blame the guy for wanting an easy sell for his first published novel. I know things only get more interesting from here so I'm glad I put the time in to read this one and get a sense of how everything started.
December 22, 2024
Priest's first novel is a dated 70s SF story about time-travel, psychoactive drugs, psychological breakdowns, and the prospect of nuclear war. Compared to his later work, it is clunky and basic: here you see Priest imitating other writers - Ballard, Kafka, Kavan - before he found his own confident and distinctly Priestian voice.
For general readers, I would say there isn't much to recommend Indoctrinaire, unless you have a specific interest in 70s SF. However, I actually found this novel a very inspirational read: comparing Indoctrinaire to Priest's later work shows how much he developed and grew as a writer, from this clunky, flawed first novel to the heights of his later work is an incredible journey, an inspiring example for anyone embarking on any creative pursuit.
For general readers, I would say there isn't much to recommend Indoctrinaire, unless you have a specific interest in 70s SF. However, I actually found this novel a very inspirational read: comparing Indoctrinaire to Priest's later work shows how much he developed and grew as a writer, from this clunky, flawed first novel to the heights of his later work is an incredible journey, an inspiring example for anyone embarking on any creative pursuit.
April 20, 2020
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
"Christopher Priest’s first novel Indoctrinaire (1970) explores the mystery of a vast perfectly round plain with a series of strange buildings that appears in the middle of the Amazonian jungle. Seemingly displaced in time, the transformed landscape is not only a visible sign of the ecological transformation the world will undergo but also, less visibly, the unseen but pernicious scars of future war.
The novel begins as an exercise in surreal [...]"
"Christopher Priest’s first novel Indoctrinaire (1970) explores the mystery of a vast perfectly round plain with a series of strange buildings that appears in the middle of the Amazonian jungle. Seemingly displaced in time, the transformed landscape is not only a visible sign of the ecological transformation the world will undergo but also, less visibly, the unseen but pernicious scars of future war.
The novel begins as an exercise in surreal [...]"
September 28, 2025
I quite liked this but it feels too short.
I can see what some people mean in that it changes tonally.
For most of the book it's a real psychological book with a focus onbuilding tension and disorientation.
The remainder of the book that has a different tone leads up to an ending which leaves you feeling like an important plot-line has been completely missed, as opposed to under-developed.
That all said, I'd recommend it as a short sci-fi read; there's the germ of some really interesting themes and ideas.
I can see what some people mean in that it changes tonally.
For most of the book it's a real psychological book with a focus onbuilding tension and disorientation.
The remainder of the book that has a different tone leads up to an ending which leaves you feeling like an important plot-line has been completely missed, as opposed to under-developed.
That all said, I'd recommend it as a short sci-fi read; there's the germ of some really interesting themes and ideas.
February 18, 2025
Not too good, this debut novel slogged along for me. Gene Wolfe also published his debut novel in 1970, and it is much better. However, Priest gets much better as he matured, shown by the much more interesting Fugue for a Darkening Island, which is terrific. Fugue is the British Camp of the Saints, later heavily bowdlerized and disowned by the kind hearted Priest. Sadly he went to his grave thinking the worst thing about Britain was the British.
July 23, 2023
Kafka meets Cameron (James not David) in Christopher Priest’s first published novel. Definitely a book of two halves. The disturbing surreal set-up reeks of paranoia and is impressive. The reveal and resolution less so. Nevertheless, had my full attention throughout.
August 26, 2023
Christopher Priest's debut sci-fi novel of time travel and global nuclear wars seems to divide readers with most judging it to be very inferior to his subsequent works but flawed as it is I enjoyed it.
July 23, 2018
Not his strongest.
December 23, 2018
3/10. Media de los 2 libros leídos del autor : 3/10
October 6, 2023
The first half was bizarre and frustrating, but as it's Christopher Priest I knew there would end up being a good explanation.
January 12, 2024
Given to me by my old English teacher before he ran off with the geog teacher half his age 😂
Took me a few years to get round to reading it. Was a bit mind bending at first. Thumbs up from me
Took me a few years to get round to reading it. Was a bit mind bending at first. Thumbs up from me
January 12, 2024
yo tampoco elegiría vivir con un viejo que usa capa
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