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The Perfect Lover
A Dream of Wessex (aka The Perfect Lover) can be read as a straightforward story about a group of 20th-century dreamers who create a consensus virtual-reality future. Once they enter their imaginary world they are unable to remember who they are, or where they're from. On another level, the novel is itself an extended metaphor for the way in which extrapolated futures are created.
The year is 1985. The Wessex Project, a privately funded project, discovers a method to transport the collective unconscious of some of England's most brilliant minds into an illusory ideal society. The object: to gather information vital to our survival on earth. But in the process, power, deception & love join to jeopardize the philanthropic program.
The year is 1985. The Wessex Project, a privately funded project, discovers a method to transport the collective unconscious of some of England's most brilliant minds into an illusory ideal society. The object: to gather information vital to our survival on earth. But in the process, power, deception & love join to jeopardize the philanthropic program.
215 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
19 people are currently reading
1104 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Priest
133 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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June 4, 2020
Inventive, imaginative, visionary - an apt description for both men and women in the novel and author of the novel. Christopher Priest, one of my favorite novelists, set my mind gyrating and performing pirouettes once again with his A Dream of Wessex.
In 1985, in a special facility built underneath ancient Maiden Castle located near Dorchester, England, in pursuit of innovative insights and approaches to social issues of the day, 39 British academics and scientists participate in a “projection” whereby they share a virtual reality, a parallel world 150 years into the future. Once they are in Dorchester in the year 2135, memories of their lives back in the 20th century evaporate and are replaced by a complete 21st century identity. According to the rules of the Wessex Project, upon retrieval to the 20th century, participants are required to write a formal report recounting their experience.
Originally published in 1977, Christopher Priest's A Dream of Wessex is a mind-bending time twister, a cross between Philip K. Dick experimental science fiction and Wilkie Collins British suspense yarn. Here's a number of the highlights a reader will encounter in this tightly told tale of 225 pages:
MAIN CHARACTERS
There's Julia Stretton, Paul Mason and David Harkman. Julia is an attractive 27-year old geologist who thrives on her participation in the project. But there is an alarming crisis lurking on the horizon: Julia's former lover from a time when they were both students at university, a strikingly handsome man by the name of Paul Mason, joins the Wessex project.
Julia had to break off her relationship with Paul back then since beneath his good looks and charisma Paul Mason turned out to be manipulative, egocentric, cruel and domineering. Fortunately, in her current life, Julia can draw strength from another man who has recently joined the project, David Harkman. A sensitive, wise 40-year-old social historian, David is also an adventurer, a quality he will need when the power struggle within the project reaches the snapping point.
Once together in projected 21st century virtual reality, David and Julia fall deeply in love. But the lovers must deal with power hungry, self-centered Paul Mason, a man who doesn't accept defeat easily, and that's understatement. In all the Christopher Priest novels I've read to date, Paul Mason is unquestionably the darkest and most sinister of the author's characters. With the inclusion of Paul, the tension created within the story skyrockets.
TIDAL WAVES
In the year 2135, following a string of catastrophic earthquakes, southwest England is now an island separated from the mainland, Dorchester, a seaside town attracting tourists. The deep channel separating the two land masses is known as Blandford Passage featuring the most phenomenal change of all: tidal waves are a common occurrence. Rising to the challenge, future Brits ride these tidal waves on specially constructed, motorized craft, a cross between surfboard and jet ski. Surf's up, dude!
David Hartman has maintained his trim physique and saved enough money to purchase one of these unique crafts and quickly becomes adept at riding the Blandford title waves. Having been a surfer in my younger days, I especially appreciate how David’s skill and courage play their part in the unfolding drama.
INTUITION
Upon meeting one another for the first time inside the projection, both Julia and David have a feeling, an indefinable sense of recognition but David admits on the level of rationality his inner feelings do not make a shred of sense. Herein lies much of the delight in reading the novel – the dissonance between the men and women in the projection who think they are in the “real” world and a reader knowing they are merely participating in a shared virtual reality.
THE UNCONSCIOUS
A participant’s projected experience in simulated 2135 is a consequence, in part, of their alter ego. In other words, a person’s deeper wishes and desires color their projection. Added to this, however, we also read: “Someone had remarked at the beginning that the collective unconscious would produce archetypal horrors, nightmare images, dreamlike situations. It had been a semi-facetious remark, but many had taken it seriously. Unlike the dream-state, though, the Wessex of the group mind was controllable. There was constant correction stemming from reason, sanity, experience; the conscious mind could override the unconscious. The nightmare fantasies did not appear.”
INNER REALITY OF THE MIND
With each page we turn, the more we share the collective 2135 Wessex dream with the novel’s characters, the more we are confronted with the conundrum of the fleeting nature of feelings, sensations and memory. How much does remembering contribute to our sense of identity? What if we could no longer remember large swaths of the past or even our entire past? What would we fall back on? Our moods? Our emotions? Our ability to analyze via reason and logic?
JOLT OF THE WEIRD
In vintage Christopher Priest style, toward the end of A Dream of Wessex there is a sudden, unforeseen event propelling the story into even more amazing dimensions of time and space. I wouldn’t want to disclose anything specific here but I will pose a number of questions: What would happen if someone in 2135 discovered their membership in the 1985 Wessex Project? How would identity be shaken up if the men and women in 2135 Wessex created their own Wessex time travel project whereby they would travel backwards in time to the year 1985? Stated another way: What confusion would be created if men and women didn’t know if they were in the “real” world or in a projection of a projection? What would your reaction be if you saw your own name among the participants in a 2018 projection? To approach an answer to any or all of these questions, I highly recommend this Christopher Priest mind-stunner.
"In the same way that she had a double, and sometimes contradictory image of herself and her own future persona, so Julia had conflicting feelings about David Hartman. As she was here, living her real life in the real world, Harkman was just another member of the projection, if one in an unusual situation. But her memory of Harkman's alter ego was altogether differrent: warm, intrigued, excited, deeply personal."
Photo of Christopher Priest taken back in the 1970s when he wrote A Dream of Wessex
June 4, 2020
The Self-Defeating Politics of the Visionary
The ideal society is not an uncommon subject in Western discourse. Plato suggested what it might look like. The early Christians had a different version. Thomas More wrote about it in his Utopia in the 16th century. Marx sketched his dictatorship of the proletariat in the 19th. G.K. Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc proposed a sort of medieval paradise based on craft-guilds in the 20th.
All these ideal societies share a common problem: an inability to specify the political system necessary and sufficient first to achieve something approximating the ideal, and then to maintain it in operation. Such a system must be capable of reconciling potentially contrary personal interests into some sort of stable common interest. To date no one has been able to formulate even a theory of such politics, much less succeed in creating a society at any level that shows itself to function effectively.
A Dream of Wessex is a fictional case study of how the search for the ideal society ends up on the rocks. It might be possible, given unlimited resources and no social constraints, to get a small group, say a half dozen people, to converge on a society which ‘works’ for everyone in the group. In fact there are organisational theorists who have proposed methods and experimented with just this, and had some success in large organisations (See https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...).
The political difficulty arises, however, precisely to the degree that a coherent view of a shared world is achieved by the participants. The creation of a stable politics within any group quickly, and understandably, becomes valued by the group. Therefore the established political process, no matter what it is, is considered as something to be protected. Any attempt to add another member to the group is considered, also understandably, as a threat to the political unity of the group. The group is politically stable but at the cost of its social isolation.
This process of political unification and subsequent isolation shows up in phenomena as diverse as the nationalistic disaster of Nazi Germany to the commercial failure of Xerox. To keep politics working, the political process excludes those whose inclusion would alter it. Trump and his Republican enablers have adopted this as their explicit strategy - by restricting immigration, voter intimidation, gerrymandering voting districts, and making unjustified claims of voter fraud.
The paradox, of course, is that the more politics is restricted, the more likely it will take unexpected directions. The abrupt dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the equally abrupt dissolution of Lehman Brothers are ultimately the consequence of restricting discussion, analysis, and judgment to some cadre of like-minded folk, who for reasons of self-interest, stupidity, or ill-will, desire to maintain the political status quo.
The recurrent theme of A Dream of Wessex is losing oneself in inner space, that is, in that idealised vision of some group which then becomes attached to that vision. Unnoticed by the participants, such a vision transforms itself from being a liberating view of political possibility to a suffocating prison of violently asserted self-interest. Such transformation is not incidental; it is an essential consequence of the way in which the shared vision was achieved in the first place. The national or corporate vision necessarily becomes “the ultimate escapist fantasy, a bolt-hole from reality.”
So beware the man or woman of vision. They are death to good politics, no matter what their vision.
The ideal society is not an uncommon subject in Western discourse. Plato suggested what it might look like. The early Christians had a different version. Thomas More wrote about it in his Utopia in the 16th century. Marx sketched his dictatorship of the proletariat in the 19th. G.K. Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc proposed a sort of medieval paradise based on craft-guilds in the 20th.
All these ideal societies share a common problem: an inability to specify the political system necessary and sufficient first to achieve something approximating the ideal, and then to maintain it in operation. Such a system must be capable of reconciling potentially contrary personal interests into some sort of stable common interest. To date no one has been able to formulate even a theory of such politics, much less succeed in creating a society at any level that shows itself to function effectively.
A Dream of Wessex is a fictional case study of how the search for the ideal society ends up on the rocks. It might be possible, given unlimited resources and no social constraints, to get a small group, say a half dozen people, to converge on a society which ‘works’ for everyone in the group. In fact there are organisational theorists who have proposed methods and experimented with just this, and had some success in large organisations (See https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...).
The political difficulty arises, however, precisely to the degree that a coherent view of a shared world is achieved by the participants. The creation of a stable politics within any group quickly, and understandably, becomes valued by the group. Therefore the established political process, no matter what it is, is considered as something to be protected. Any attempt to add another member to the group is considered, also understandably, as a threat to the political unity of the group. The group is politically stable but at the cost of its social isolation.
This process of political unification and subsequent isolation shows up in phenomena as diverse as the nationalistic disaster of Nazi Germany to the commercial failure of Xerox. To keep politics working, the political process excludes those whose inclusion would alter it. Trump and his Republican enablers have adopted this as their explicit strategy - by restricting immigration, voter intimidation, gerrymandering voting districts, and making unjustified claims of voter fraud.
The paradox, of course, is that the more politics is restricted, the more likely it will take unexpected directions. The abrupt dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the equally abrupt dissolution of Lehman Brothers are ultimately the consequence of restricting discussion, analysis, and judgment to some cadre of like-minded folk, who for reasons of self-interest, stupidity, or ill-will, desire to maintain the political status quo.
The recurrent theme of A Dream of Wessex is losing oneself in inner space, that is, in that idealised vision of some group which then becomes attached to that vision. Unnoticed by the participants, such a vision transforms itself from being a liberating view of political possibility to a suffocating prison of violently asserted self-interest. Such transformation is not incidental; it is an essential consequence of the way in which the shared vision was achieved in the first place. The national or corporate vision necessarily becomes “the ultimate escapist fantasy, a bolt-hole from reality.”
So beware the man or woman of vision. They are death to good politics, no matter what their vision.
January 11, 2016
As much as I want to like Christopher Priest -- his mind and reality-bending tales should be right up my alley -- there's something in his prose style that prevents me from totally connecting with his work, although I did mostly enjoy The Affirmation and the Prestige, even if I had similar issues with those. His writing is so devoid of emotion, so distant, as are his characters. Which is a shame, as the story here had the potential to be a good one.
Sometime in the near future, scientists have developed some sort of virtual reality or shared hallucination that allows its users to live in a scientifically projected/predicted far-future utopia, in order to figure out how that utopia came to be, so they can learn from it. The volunteers are totally enveloped in this future world, even taking on different personalities. The problem for me was that they have no personalities, at least that I could tell. It was also quite confusing at times, and it was a lot of work having to constantly go back and forth to figure out what's going on in a story I cared less and less about as I went on, due to the dull characters and sleep-inducing writing style.
It ended up somewhat coming together in the end, and there were a handful of moments that made my brain melt from working overtime (in a good way), so it wasn't a total loss. I'll probably still read some more Priest in the future, as his ideas are pretty spectacular (plus I already own several more books of his). Maybe his newer work has better characterization, more life and immediacy. As creative as his stories are, his robotic prose has a tendency to make my eyes roll into the back of my head.
2.5 Stars
Sometime in the near future, scientists have developed some sort of virtual reality or shared hallucination that allows its users to live in a scientifically projected/predicted far-future utopia, in order to figure out how that utopia came to be, so they can learn from it. The volunteers are totally enveloped in this future world, even taking on different personalities. The problem for me was that they have no personalities, at least that I could tell. It was also quite confusing at times, and it was a lot of work having to constantly go back and forth to figure out what's going on in a story I cared less and less about as I went on, due to the dull characters and sleep-inducing writing style.
It ended up somewhat coming together in the end, and there were a handful of moments that made my brain melt from working overtime (in a good way), so it wasn't a total loss. I'll probably still read some more Priest in the future, as his ideas are pretty spectacular (plus I already own several more books of his). Maybe his newer work has better characterization, more life and immediacy. As creative as his stories are, his robotic prose has a tendency to make my eyes roll into the back of my head.
2.5 Stars
December 16, 2025
A Dream of Wessex - Christopher Priest
"شعرت بخسارة فادحة، وحزنٍ عارم، ويقينٍ راسخٍ بأن شخصًا أحبته لم يعد موجودًا. مات أحدهم في ذلك اليوم، أو غادر المجتمع. لم تكن متأكدةً أيهما، ولا من كان. كان الأمر غامضًا للغاية. هل كان رجلًا أم امرأة؟ "بحلول الليل..." أصبح الشعور حزنًا عامًا، وليسَ مرتبطًا بحدثٍ أو شخص معين."
"لطالما كانت العودة مريحة، ذلك الارتياح اللاواعي المرتعش الذي يشعرُ به المرء عند الوصول إلى المنزل بعد سيرٍ وحيدٍ في وقت متأخر من الليل. خوفٌ لا عقلاني، واستقبالٌ مطمئنٌ لأمان المألوف."
"انهمرت دموعها بسبب هذه المسافة بينهما، ولأنها لم ترد سوى أن تكون إلى جانبه."
"وحدها هي من زارت الماضي المتخيَّل، وخرجت منه سالمةً. كانت هي الوحيدة التي استطاعت العودة إلى الواقع. ذكرياتها ظلت مكتملةً. هي في وسيكس. المستقبل، الحاضر، الـ الآن."
...
تدور أحداث هذه الرواية في العام 1985، حيث تنضم جوليا سترتون لمشروع يحاول حلَّ مشاكل العالم الراهنة-وقتها... وبدعى مشروع وسيكس، في هذا المشروع يتنقل المشاركون عبر الأحلام وباستخدام جهاز إلى واقع إفتراضي مستقبلي-150 عامًا تقريبًا في المستقبل، لكن عند دخول ��سيكس، يفقدون كل ذكرى لحياتهم 'الحقيقية' في الخارج، ومع انتقالهم ذهابًا وإيابًا تختفي الخطوط الفاصلة بين الحلم والواقع. وعندما ينضم حبيب جوليا السابق، بول ميسون السادي، إلى المشروع، تكون لديه خطة شريرة لرفع مشروع وسيكس إلى مستوى جديد مرعب...
نشرت هذه الرواية عام 1977 في عزّ الحرب الباردة، مع فكرة طموحة وبحث عن حلول لعالم غارق في الانقسام و العنف .
تركز الرواية على حيوات المشاركين في المشروع داخل العالم الافتراضي، جوليا وديفيد والآخرين.. في الرواية؛ قصة حب رومانسية-بريست يكتب هذه الجزئية بشاعرية استثنائية، قد يصاب القارىء بالتشوش بسبب ضبابية المشهد مع اختفاء الخطوط الفاصلة بين الواقع والأحلام ويرافقه طوال الوقت مشاعر ترقب وتوتر حول الأحداث..
فكرة غريبة ومخيفة توعًا ما وتصويرها للمكان والزمان-لأن المشاركين لا ينتقلون فعليًا لمكان لكن إلى زمن محدد وكالعادة أفكار بريست حول الذاكرة والواقع والخيال وهي الرواية الرابعة التي أقرؤها له هذا العام..
قرأتها في الصيف لكن الكتابة عنها كانت صعبة ..
تحذير:
تحتوي هذه الرواية: على مشاهد عنف منزلي، وشخصيات نرجسية وساديّة، ومحاولة اغتصاب، وابتزاز واستغلال جنسي...
~
فجر يوم الثلاثاء، الخامس والعشرون من جمادى الثانية-1447هـ
"شعرت بخسارة فادحة، وحزنٍ عارم، ويقينٍ راسخٍ بأن شخصًا أحبته لم يعد موجودًا. مات أحدهم في ذلك اليوم، أو غادر المجتمع. لم تكن متأكدةً أيهما، ولا من كان. كان الأمر غامضًا للغاية. هل كان رجلًا أم امرأة؟ "بحلول الليل..." أصبح الشعور حزنًا عامًا، وليسَ مرتبطًا بحدثٍ أو شخص معين."
"لطالما كانت العودة مريحة، ذلك الارتياح اللاواعي المرتعش الذي يشعرُ به المرء عند الوصول إلى المنزل بعد سيرٍ وحيدٍ في وقت متأخر من الليل. خوفٌ لا عقلاني، واستقبالٌ مطمئنٌ لأمان المألوف."
"انهمرت دموعها بسبب هذه المسافة بينهما، ولأنها لم ترد سوى أن تكون إلى جانبه."
"وحدها هي من زارت الماضي المتخيَّل، وخرجت منه سالمةً. كانت هي الوحيدة التي استطاعت العودة إلى الواقع. ذكرياتها ظلت مكتملةً. هي في وسيكس. المستقبل، الحاضر، الـ الآن."
...
تدور أحداث هذه الرواية في العام 1985، حيث تنضم جوليا سترتون لمشروع يحاول حلَّ مشاكل العالم الراهنة-وقتها... وبدعى مشروع وسيكس، في هذا المشروع يتنقل المشاركون عبر الأحلام وباستخدام جهاز إلى واقع إفتراضي مستقبلي-150 عامًا تقريبًا في المستقبل، لكن عند دخول ��سيكس، يفقدون كل ذكرى لحياتهم 'الحقيقية' في الخارج، ومع انتقالهم ذهابًا وإيابًا تختفي الخطوط الفاصلة بين الحلم والواقع. وعندما ينضم حبيب جوليا السابق، بول ميسون السادي، إلى المشروع، تكون لديه خطة شريرة لرفع مشروع وسيكس إلى مستوى جديد مرعب...
نشرت هذه الرواية عام 1977 في عزّ الحرب الباردة، مع فكرة طموحة وبحث عن حلول لعالم غارق في الانقسام و العنف .
تركز الرواية على حيوات المشاركين في المشروع داخل العالم الافتراضي، جوليا وديفيد والآخرين.. في الرواية؛ قصة حب رومانسية-بريست يكتب هذه الجزئية بشاعرية استثنائية، قد يصاب القارىء بالتشوش بسبب ضبابية المشهد مع اختفاء الخطوط الفاصلة بين الواقع والأحلام ويرافقه طوال الوقت مشاعر ترقب وتوتر حول الأحداث..
فكرة غريبة ومخيفة توعًا ما وتصويرها للمكان والزمان-لأن المشاركين لا ينتقلون فعليًا لمكان لكن إلى زمن محدد وكالعادة أفكار بريست حول الذاكرة والواقع والخيال وهي الرواية الرابعة التي أقرؤها له هذا العام..
قرأتها في الصيف لكن الكتابة عنها كانت صعبة ..
تحذير:
تحتوي هذه الرواية: على مشاهد عنف منزلي، وشخصيات نرجسية وساديّة، ومحاولة اغتصاب، وابتزاز واستغلال جنسي...
~
فجر يوم الثلاثاء، الخامس والعشرون من جمادى الثانية-1447هـ
Read
April 26, 2016This took me right back to the 1970s when I read most of my sci-fi. Thoughtful political and social background to a story set in the near future (early 1980s) with projections to a further future. The decay of the environment, scarcity, the division of the world into not surprising blocks all rang true. The world is largely composed of an Islamic bloc including North America and a Soviet bloc including the UK where the story is set. Australia, I'm pleased to report, is one of the few independent countries.
Character development doesn't stand comparison with Shakespeare, but it compares favourably with the run of the mill science fiction I've read so much of. Priest is a polished writer, which makes him easy to read. The basic premise was believable, it's nice not to have to be convinced to suspend disbelief.
I confess I hadn't heard of him before, despite being well regarded, most notably these days for having written the book that later became the Nolan movie The Prestige. I could read more. It struck me as rather PK Dick without the drugs.
Trots off to look up that idea online. Spots this:
https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
Character development doesn't stand comparison with Shakespeare, but it compares favourably with the run of the mill science fiction I've read so much of. Priest is a polished writer, which makes him easy to read. The basic premise was believable, it's nice not to have to be convinced to suspend disbelief.
I confess I hadn't heard of him before, despite being well regarded, most notably these days for having written the book that later became the Nolan movie The Prestige. I could read more. It struck me as rather PK Dick without the drugs.
Trots off to look up that idea online. Spots this:
https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
March 15, 2025
Priest serves up a virtual reality mind bender here with A Dream of Wessex. First published in 1977, I believe this was Priest's fourth novel. Set primarily in 1985, the tale centers on a project in Wessex, where some sort of device (Priest never goes into much detail here) connects the participant's dreams if you will. When they 'project', they enter a virtual reality about 150 into the future, but 'forget' the present (e.g., that they are participants in some greater project), assuming a variety of roles. Occasionally, the members are taken out of the projection and then they narrate their experiences in the future Wessex.
What is the point of the project? Well, Priest paints a pretty grim near future here, with a variety of crises besetting Britain- oil shocks, economic decline, terrorism (Irish and Scottish) and so forth. The future Wessex is something of an Eden (by design) and the hope is that insights into this future world will facilitate making the current world better. Whew!
Our protagonist, Julia, has been working as a participant in the project for the last few years. Priest portrays Julia as still recovering from a traumatic relationship with one Paul that ended 4 years ago; the abusive partner continually degraded her, eroded her self-worth, and she is still haunted by it. Worse, Paul seems to have finagled a way into the project; an event that kicks off the novel.
'Losing yourself in an alternative reality' has been done many times, but Priest gives it a good go here (and yeah, back in 1977). I do not want to dive into the plot to avoid spoilers, however. Priest's prose feels a bit abrupt at times, as do his characters. Paul is a real nasty piece of work for sure though. Julia? Some sympathy for sure, but the rest of the cast felt pretty flat. I loved the virtual world and the political dynamics there. Quick read and the denouement left me shaking my head a bit. 3.5 virtual stars, rounding up!!
What is the point of the project? Well, Priest paints a pretty grim near future here, with a variety of crises besetting Britain- oil shocks, economic decline, terrorism (Irish and Scottish) and so forth. The future Wessex is something of an Eden (by design) and the hope is that insights into this future world will facilitate making the current world better. Whew!
Our protagonist, Julia, has been working as a participant in the project for the last few years. Priest portrays Julia as still recovering from a traumatic relationship with one Paul that ended 4 years ago; the abusive partner continually degraded her, eroded her self-worth, and she is still haunted by it. Worse, Paul seems to have finagled a way into the project; an event that kicks off the novel.
'Losing yourself in an alternative reality' has been done many times, but Priest gives it a good go here (and yeah, back in 1977). I do not want to dive into the plot to avoid spoilers, however. Priest's prose feels a bit abrupt at times, as do his characters. Paul is a real nasty piece of work for sure though. Julia? Some sympathy for sure, but the rest of the cast felt pretty flat. I loved the virtual world and the political dynamics there. Quick read and the denouement left me shaking my head a bit. 3.5 virtual stars, rounding up!!
August 26, 2024
A five-star novel when it comes to its ideas and their disorientating nuances, but nearly a two-star novel when it comes to its abbreviated characterizations and the cloying love-triangle melodrama. In a long while, I haven't been torn into two clear directions with one novel. As brilliant as it is frustrating, Priest is becoming my new favorites despite this colorful misfire.
In modern-day southwest England, The Wessex Foundation carries on a secret experiment where the 39 test-subjects are transported 150 years into a future southwest England, which has now become an island after severe earthquakes, and to boot, a holiday seaside resort where even surfing has become a thing (not too mention England is now under majority Soviet rule). But the trustees of the group are curiously cautious as to what's going on behind closed gates and send in one of their young guns, a corporate shark and handsome slickster, Paul Mason. Now this bloke has a tender spot for one of the scientists, a Julia Stratton. And he's a maguffin alright, only present to remind our heroine Julia that she still has a 'thing' for him and to provide a threat that will not only jeopardize the program, but the dual existences of Julia and her one true love (contained in the dreamfuture of Wessex), David Harkman.
Deeply rich idea-building, but where Christopher Priest fails is with his characters. They people Priest's fantastic world of dual mirrored selves, past & present, with a one-dimensional grace that becomes nearly bawdy. Not to say Priest doesn't illuminate his cast, he does in doses (when they're analyzing the realities/fantasies, not in conversation), but by the anti-climax, this reader here felt cheated a bit. All the action is overwrought dialogue, and what little movement there is, it's dedicated to people opening and shutting dream canisters in the laboratory to see if the inhabitants have disappeared. It's the equivalent of having an action movie end with the heroes and villains opening multiple fridges to check what's leftover. Still, a fine and concise novel, and important to Priest's CV and his transition to more quietly menacing novels about identity and despair...Affirmation, Glamour).
For fans of UK SF, especially in the mold of J.G. Ballard and D.G. Compton). Despite its polarizing review, I'll never see mirrors the same way ever again.
In modern-day southwest England, The Wessex Foundation carries on a secret experiment where the 39 test-subjects are transported 150 years into a future southwest England, which has now become an island after severe earthquakes, and to boot, a holiday seaside resort where even surfing has become a thing (not too mention England is now under majority Soviet rule). But the trustees of the group are curiously cautious as to what's going on behind closed gates and send in one of their young guns, a corporate shark and handsome slickster, Paul Mason. Now this bloke has a tender spot for one of the scientists, a Julia Stratton. And he's a maguffin alright, only present to remind our heroine Julia that she still has a 'thing' for him and to provide a threat that will not only jeopardize the program, but the dual existences of Julia and her one true love (contained in the dreamfuture of Wessex), David Harkman.
Deeply rich idea-building, but where Christopher Priest fails is with his characters. They people Priest's fantastic world of dual mirrored selves, past & present, with a one-dimensional grace that becomes nearly bawdy. Not to say Priest doesn't illuminate his cast, he does in doses (when they're analyzing the realities/fantasies, not in conversation), but by the anti-climax, this reader here felt cheated a bit. All the action is overwrought dialogue, and what little movement there is, it's dedicated to people opening and shutting dream canisters in the laboratory to see if the inhabitants have disappeared. It's the equivalent of having an action movie end with the heroes and villains opening multiple fridges to check what's leftover. Still, a fine and concise novel, and important to Priest's CV and his transition to more quietly menacing novels about identity and despair...Affirmation, Glamour).
For fans of UK SF, especially in the mold of J.G. Ballard and D.G. Compton). Despite its polarizing review, I'll never see mirrors the same way ever again.
August 15, 2015
From 1977, a tale set a few years in the future where a psychological experiment is underway to "imagine" life in the 22nd century. The process is mediated by gadgetry, but the emphasis is on "the unconscious" as the driver and the real magic-box that makes things work. The term "virtual reality" didn't exist back then, but there's no suggestion computers have any control over the process. The notion of communal hallucination was already well-established in SF by then however.
The point and practice of the Wessex Project doesn't make complete sense. How exactly are the participants supposed to be learning how the future society "works" if all that goes in to it are aspects of their own 20th century consciousness? I get the impression that Priest himself couldn't quite solve that problem, and the passage with that "explanation" was a hurried insertion. Why is it that Tom fades out entirely and is forgotten when his real body dies, if we are told that characters persist in the "future" even when their 20th century puppeteers are disconnected?
There is a good story here, about a vision of imagined paradise getting disrupted by a malign invader. But it gets rushed through too quickly, we could do with a middle section in which Paul Mason's transformation of Wessex unwinds slowly. Instead, we see him revealed as a baddie in a deeply unpleasant attempted rape scene, then before very long he is falling to pieces as a B-movie version of a mad scientist having a breakdown. Did a merciless editor insist that 100 pages had to be cut for publication?
Overall this is entertaining enough, much more than "Inception" and similar films which have taken these themes and flogged them to death. The real story here is late 70s paranoia about political breakdown and economic crisis, from which viewpoint a communist leisure resort in the west country would seem like paradise.
The point and practice of the Wessex Project doesn't make complete sense. How exactly are the participants supposed to be learning how the future society "works" if all that goes in to it are aspects of their own 20th century consciousness? I get the impression that Priest himself couldn't quite solve that problem, and the passage with that "explanation" was a hurried insertion. Why is it that Tom fades out entirely and is forgotten when his real body dies, if we are told that characters persist in the "future" even when their 20th century puppeteers are disconnected?
There is a good story here, about a vision of imagined paradise getting disrupted by a malign invader. But it gets rushed through too quickly, we could do with a middle section in which Paul Mason's transformation of Wessex unwinds slowly. Instead, we see him revealed as a baddie in a deeply unpleasant attempted rape scene, then before very long he is falling to pieces as a B-movie version of a mad scientist having a breakdown. Did a merciless editor insist that 100 pages had to be cut for publication?
Overall this is entertaining enough, much more than "Inception" and similar films which have taken these themes and flogged them to death. The real story here is late 70s paranoia about political breakdown and economic crisis, from which viewpoint a communist leisure resort in the west country would seem like paradise.
November 12, 2021
Of course A Dream of Wessex is a standalone and perfectly readable as such, but I'd suggest that this book emerges in its fullness only when read together with, or at least with some prior knowledge of, the novel that Priest wrote right after this one, namely The Affirmation. They basically tell the same story with radically different means. (Which, by the way, I appreciated immensely. It shows how incredibly self-reflective Priest is as a writer.)
April 15, 2025
#7 Priest: Can a Dream World Become Reality?
After an excursion into Christopher Priest's recent novels (Airside and An American Story), which I found convincing in a number of ways, even though they are not genre fiction, A Dream of Wessex abruptly brought me back to the métier that Priest has mastered like no other. In this 1977 book he creates a fascinating vision of the boundaries of reality and consciousness, which at many points makes you wonder what is real and whether it matters at all. This book is a real addition to the genre, as the Guardian describes it in the current Gollancz issue. The events do seem like a dream too good to be true.
In 1985, a group of British scientists are working on an experiment in an underground laboratory near Dorchester: by means of a collective projection, they transport themselves to England in 2135, a world marked by geological upheaval but also by new possibilities. Once they are in the simulation, their memories of the present become blurred and they live completely in their new identity, their alter ego. In this world, everything seems harmonious and perfect, and the scientists want to find out how this world, with its harmonious politics and economy, could become real and solve the really serious problems of the real world.
With his elegant language, Priest creates a hypnotic story about memory, identity and the power of perception. A Dream of Wessex is an exciting exploration of the possibilities of virtual realities, a haunting psychodrama. It is also a story about whether it will be possible for humanity as a whole to overcome serious problems such as the climate crisis and political tensions and to create this utopian world in the future.
Because of its complexity and blurred reality, it is difficult to grasp all the nuances directly, and the implications are only hinted at on first reading, which adds to the fascination, but also to the confusion. Priest plays with the reader's confusion by only vaguely hinting at the boundaries between the real world and the dream utopia, especially at the beginning, and then throwing us directly into both worlds. A novel that stays with you for a long time and should be read at least a second time.
After an excursion into Christopher Priest's recent novels (Airside and An American Story), which I found convincing in a number of ways, even though they are not genre fiction, A Dream of Wessex abruptly brought me back to the métier that Priest has mastered like no other. In this 1977 book he creates a fascinating vision of the boundaries of reality and consciousness, which at many points makes you wonder what is real and whether it matters at all. This book is a real addition to the genre, as the Guardian describes it in the current Gollancz issue. The events do seem like a dream too good to be true.
In 1985, a group of British scientists are working on an experiment in an underground laboratory near Dorchester: by means of a collective projection, they transport themselves to England in 2135, a world marked by geological upheaval but also by new possibilities. Once they are in the simulation, their memories of the present become blurred and they live completely in their new identity, their alter ego. In this world, everything seems harmonious and perfect, and the scientists want to find out how this world, with its harmonious politics and economy, could become real and solve the really serious problems of the real world.
With his elegant language, Priest creates a hypnotic story about memory, identity and the power of perception. A Dream of Wessex is an exciting exploration of the possibilities of virtual realities, a haunting psychodrama. It is also a story about whether it will be possible for humanity as a whole to overcome serious problems such as the climate crisis and political tensions and to create this utopian world in the future.
Because of its complexity and blurred reality, it is difficult to grasp all the nuances directly, and the implications are only hinted at on first reading, which adds to the fascination, but also to the confusion. Priest plays with the reader's confusion by only vaguely hinting at the boundaries between the real world and the dream utopia, especially at the beginning, and then throwing us directly into both worlds. A novel that stays with you for a long time and should be read at least a second time.
January 16, 2019
Note: This novel contains triggers of domestic violence, narcissistic personality disorder, attempted rape, sexual exploitation and blackmail.
This novel is a mind-twisting look at the potential of a simulated reality. In this late twentieth century dystopia that never came to pass, the world is tearing itself apart. But an odd project is in existence: people are leaving their real lives behind to slide their bodies into mortuary drawers and join a hypnotically projected, collective simulated reality of a strange future. One such woman is Julia, who is perpetually running from her narcissistic, abusive ex-boyfriend, until she smashes into him at the project offices in London. She has been ordered to find and investigate the "disappearance" of projector participant David Harkman, whose alter ego cannot be located within the simulated reality. But once she joins the projection, she cannot remember the real world and is lost within her alter-ego. Yet this is only the beginning of a twisted tale; because Julia's maniacal former "love" Paul Mason has been hired to infiltrate the projection and "set it back on course", tearing apart the boundaries of simulation and reality.
This novel is a mind-twisting look at the potential of a simulated reality. In this late twentieth century dystopia that never came to pass, the world is tearing itself apart. But an odd project is in existence: people are leaving their real lives behind to slide their bodies into mortuary drawers and join a hypnotically projected, collective simulated reality of a strange future. One such woman is Julia, who is perpetually running from her narcissistic, abusive ex-boyfriend, until she smashes into him at the project offices in London. She has been ordered to find and investigate the "disappearance" of projector participant David Harkman, whose alter ego cannot be located within the simulated reality. But once she joins the projection, she cannot remember the real world and is lost within her alter-ego. Yet this is only the beginning of a twisted tale; because Julia's maniacal former "love" Paul Mason has been hired to infiltrate the projection and "set it back on course", tearing apart the boundaries of simulation and reality.
August 30, 2018
The only other book I have read by Christopher Priest to date is The Prestige which I enjoyed very much indeed. So I was glad to pick up this book in a charity shop.
It's hard to believe it is by the same author, albeit written (or at any rate published) about 20 years earlier. The style is clunky, and the central female character is wooden and unbelievable. I suspect that at that stage of his career, Priest just didn't write convincing female characters. Does he now? I shall have to read more by him to decide that. I was left wondering if it was a very early book, published after he had some success with books written later.
There are probably ideas in this book that he used again later, hopefully to greater effect, as for me, the story, especially the ending, was unconvincing. Not recommended.
It's hard to believe it is by the same author, albeit written (or at any rate published) about 20 years earlier. The style is clunky, and the central female character is wooden and unbelievable. I suspect that at that stage of his career, Priest just didn't write convincing female characters. Does he now? I shall have to read more by him to decide that. I was left wondering if it was a very early book, published after he had some success with books written later.
There are probably ideas in this book that he used again later, hopefully to greater effect, as for me, the story, especially the ending, was unconvincing. Not recommended.
January 14, 2022
This is the second Priest novel I have read in the last week or so and I am beginning to see that I love Priest's ideas (particularly his focus on reality being subjective) but his actual writing can be dull as dishwater.
June 24, 2018
Inception-like speculative fiction that despite some time-specific references (i.e. in extrapolating Cold War political configurations) still feels fresh some 40 years on. The central premise is the development of the 'Wessex Project': an idealistic academic project based in an ancient hill-fort (a nice reference to the complex links between past, present, and future) to discover the means to reach an idyllic future world of political and economic stability. Of course, one could pick many holes in the plausibility of the project. However, the point-of-view characters are all so convinced of its rationality that there is never much space while reading to raise these objections - they only come to me now, as I sit and type this review.
The novel opens with a chapter from the perspective of Julia Stretton, the project's youngest participant, and then adopts the viewpoint of some other participants as well to provide a fleshed out picture of this future Wessex that comes out as disconcertingly real, an entertaining imagining. The central love affair never felt very convincing: even within the story, they characters admit that it was rushed, and the whole 'love at first sight' trope/shortcut didn't match up with the careful psychological development that had been provided for Julia's previous significant relationship. The relationship became more and more important to the plot as it progressed, which made it seem less convincing by the time of the final resolution. The idea of collective imagining, also, could have used more development: I would have loved to see some of the discussions of the group before starting the projection, or knowing how they actually gave form to the idyllic future Wessex.
There is something very meta about this novel, not only in the plot's ultimate resolution, but in the premise itself. The Wessex Project as an elaborate form of wish-fulfilment, an intellectual indulgence by people who want to avoid the real world - the notion mirrors the way many people think of science fiction, doesn't it? Witness the pithy summary made of the project by the unspecified narrative voice, that echoes the more critical reactions to it within the narrative:
Although, of course, no sf reading/viewing experience is ever as immersive as the Ridpath projector in this novel. Could you live in an imagined reality even if you knew it was just the fabrication of a collective unconscious? I don't think I could, but it's certainly worth considering. The most interesting parts of the book were indeed the ones that attempted to capture the difference between dream and reality, that ineffable difference when you are in a dream that feels palpably real. Compared to another work of British sf from the period, Kairos, this novel's exploration of the limits between thought and reality is more rigorously thought-out, and therefore more thought-provoking. So, although the book does have some shortcomings and omissions that might have made it richer, it is a convincing and enjoyable read that has not aged badly at all.
The novel opens with a chapter from the perspective of Julia Stretton, the project's youngest participant, and then adopts the viewpoint of some other participants as well to provide a fleshed out picture of this future Wessex that comes out as disconcertingly real, an entertaining imagining. The central love affair never felt very convincing: even within the story, they characters admit that it was rushed, and the whole 'love at first sight' trope/shortcut didn't match up with the careful psychological development that had been provided for Julia's previous significant relationship. The relationship became more and more important to the plot as it progressed, which made it seem less convincing by the time of the final resolution. The idea of collective imagining, also, could have used more development: I would have loved to see some of the discussions of the group before starting the projection, or knowing how they actually gave form to the idyllic future Wessex.
There is something very meta about this novel, not only in the plot's ultimate resolution, but in the premise itself. The Wessex Project as an elaborate form of wish-fulfilment, an intellectual indulgence by people who want to avoid the real world - the notion mirrors the way many people think of science fiction, doesn't it? Witness the pithy summary made of the project by the unspecified narrative voice, that echoes the more critical reactions to it within the narrative:
'Wessex, tourist island in an imagined future, became the ultimate escapist fantasy, a bolt-hole from reality.' (78)
Although, of course, no sf reading/viewing experience is ever as immersive as the Ridpath projector in this novel. Could you live in an imagined reality even if you knew it was just the fabrication of a collective unconscious? I don't think I could, but it's certainly worth considering. The most interesting parts of the book were indeed the ones that attempted to capture the difference between dream and reality, that ineffable difference when you are in a dream that feels palpably real. Compared to another work of British sf from the period, Kairos, this novel's exploration of the limits between thought and reality is more rigorously thought-out, and therefore more thought-provoking. So, although the book does have some shortcomings and omissions that might have made it richer, it is a convincing and enjoyable read that has not aged badly at all.
October 17, 2018
This book started out as a slog for me. It had a slow start, to the point of being almost boring, and the only reason I kept returning to the book is because I had heard it was supposed to be some kind of mind-bending story. It had an intriguing idea, but the story itself started off with a lot of discussion about surfing and tidal bores, and it quickly lost me.
By about the halfway point, the story picked up, in part due to Priest's skills at characterization. His two main characters had a chemistry that worked despite the story being told in a very plain, straightforward style, and the two of them drew me in. He also included an antagonist who is loathsome and repulsive, enough to help the reader root for the two protagonists, even if they aren't already invested in their story. By the time the story started to come together, I was invested in the whole thing, and it was hard to tear me away from the book.
The book is also similar to Philip K. Dick's books, in that Priest is examining reality and how we define it. The premise of the book is that a group of scientists, researchers, sociologists, etc., are participating in an experiment where they collectively project their thoughts into a future Wessex. They can move in and out of the projection, from 1985 to 2135 and back again, with the intention of recording what they see in this projected future. Different personalities affect the projection differently, and before long, the reader (and the participants) are questioning what makes one reality more real than another.
This is a book I would recommend with caveats, since it does have such a slow beginning. It's worth persevering, though, and the themes and ideas of the story will leave readers much to think about. Plus, it's much, much better than The Space Machine.
By about the halfway point, the story picked up, in part due to Priest's skills at characterization. His two main characters had a chemistry that worked despite the story being told in a very plain, straightforward style, and the two of them drew me in. He also included an antagonist who is loathsome and repulsive, enough to help the reader root for the two protagonists, even if they aren't already invested in their story. By the time the story started to come together, I was invested in the whole thing, and it was hard to tear me away from the book.
The book is also similar to Philip K. Dick's books, in that Priest is examining reality and how we define it. The premise of the book is that a group of scientists, researchers, sociologists, etc., are participating in an experiment where they collectively project their thoughts into a future Wessex. They can move in and out of the projection, from 1985 to 2135 and back again, with the intention of recording what they see in this projected future. Different personalities affect the projection differently, and before long, the reader (and the participants) are questioning what makes one reality more real than another.
This is a book I would recommend with caveats, since it does have such a slow beginning. It's worth persevering, though, and the themes and ideas of the story will leave readers much to think about. Plus, it's much, much better than The Space Machine.
November 28, 2014
I absolutely loved A Dream of Wessex. This book really sets the scene for Priest’s later work such as, The Affirmation and his ‘Dream Archipelago’ that would become a recurrent environment in his writing. A Dream of Wessex is brilliantly told and despite the science fiction aspect of the story, relationships are really at the heart of the story.
The story’s focuses on Julia, who has rebuilt her life following a turbulent relationship, and has joined the “Wessex project” – a collective of 38 minds who join together through a specially built projector machine, to envisage a future time, where they exist as alter-egos in the dream-like world of “Wessex". This being Priest, you can expect a blurring of lines between Wessex and reality, past and present and dreams within the dream. And everything changes when Julia’s ex, Paul, suddenly turns up at the Wessex project. The troubled relationship between Julia and Paul is expertly told, and did remind me of the relationship triangulation in Priest’s The Glamour.
As with most of Priest’s work, A Dream of Wessex is haunting and gripping, with an unpredictable air of unease throughout and very vivid dream-like imagery. For me it’s age didn’t show whatsoever, despite the fact part of it is set in the early 1980s. If you are a fan of Priest’s later books, then this comes highly recommended. Plus you can spot all the ideas that were ‘borrowed’ for the film Inception, of which there are many similarities…
The story’s focuses on Julia, who has rebuilt her life following a turbulent relationship, and has joined the “Wessex project” – a collective of 38 minds who join together through a specially built projector machine, to envisage a future time, where they exist as alter-egos in the dream-like world of “Wessex". This being Priest, you can expect a blurring of lines between Wessex and reality, past and present and dreams within the dream. And everything changes when Julia’s ex, Paul, suddenly turns up at the Wessex project. The troubled relationship between Julia and Paul is expertly told, and did remind me of the relationship triangulation in Priest’s The Glamour.
As with most of Priest’s work, A Dream of Wessex is haunting and gripping, with an unpredictable air of unease throughout and very vivid dream-like imagery. For me it’s age didn’t show whatsoever, despite the fact part of it is set in the early 1980s. If you are a fan of Priest’s later books, then this comes highly recommended. Plus you can spot all the ideas that were ‘borrowed’ for the film Inception, of which there are many similarities…
February 1, 2015
This story didn't feel right to me. The sensibilities of the late 1970s England, mixed with a pseudo-futuristic "machine" to project the characters into a multi-consciousness vision of the future is a time-shifting story that left out too many details and that plagued me throughout the book. For example, if David Harkman has been in the projection for two years without retrieval, how is he fed, cleaned, and allowed to "linger"? No round mirrors in the future? Every woman's purse has a round mirror in her compact! And what the heck happened to Paul Mason when he was allowed to take over the project and become the director of the projection-- he just goes crazy and huddles in a corner when opposed? I didn't mind Julia, but I just couldn't resolve all the issues and inconsistencies in the story to call it good.
March 21, 2010
I have to admit that I approached this book with some trepidation, having not really liked The Separation, but I enjoyed this quite a lot. It's about a group of scientists who explore the nature of reality by creating their own "projected" world and living in it, with alternate personalities for months at a time. A nice little piece about the nature of reality, and a good human story of conflict with one of the participants having to deal with an abusive ex-boyfriend. The end was confusing, but when you get layers of reality like this, it often is. It could probably do with a re-read.
September 24, 2019
Abgebrochen nach 80 Seiten. Es machte keinen Spaß. Mir wurde immer noch nicht klar, was das ganze eigentlich soll. Dabei wird mit rechter Ausführlichkeit Nebensächliches geschildert.
Als dann der toxische Ex-Freund auftaucht und die weibliche Hauptfigur ihm irgendwie hilflos ausgeliefert ist, machte es noch weniger Spaß und ich gab auf.
Als dann der toxische Ex-Freund auftaucht und die weibliche Hauptfigur ihm irgendwie hilflos ausgeliefert ist, machte es noch weniger Spaß und ich gab auf.
December 11, 2013
like an acid fuelled late night brainstorm about consciousness and identity and Wessex, not especially well written but interesting and good old school headtrip fun
February 2, 2022
New idea in 1977: we are living in a simulation that seems like reality but is most definitely not.
December 17, 2017
Julia Stretton is a researcher for the Ridpath projection, a machine that has generated a completely convincing simulation of what the world may look like in the early 22nd Century. In the projection, the south-west of England has broken away from the rest of the island of Britain due to an earthquake and has become something of a holiday resort, tolerated by a communist government in London for the sake of international relations. In this vision of the future Julia finds herself drawn to a man named David for reasons she doesn't quite understand, but in the real world the arrival of her ex-lover on the project's staff causes chaos for Julia and the project...
A Dream of Wessex was originally published in 1977 and was Christopher Priest's fifth novel, following up on the extremely well-received An Inverted World and The Space Machine. Like many of Priest's books, it contains musings on memory, identity, consciousness and reality. The book also describes what looks suspiciously like a prophetic virtual reality cyberspace simulation some years ahead of such things becoming fashionable thanks to cyberpunk.
The novel features Priest's traditional narrative hallmark, namely being written in clear and readable prose through which the author laces several narrative and thematic time bombs that explode in the reader's face at key points (dubbed 'The Priest Effect' by David Langford), including several hours after you finish the book when you suddenly go, "Hang on, does that mean..." and you have to go scurrying back to re-read half the book to confirm your suspicions. Characterisation is excellent, with Julia an interesting protagonist who spends part of the book in fear of her ex-lover, but eventually coming to terms on how to deal with him through internal reasoning rather than a more obvious and melodramatic external form (beating him up or having some big speech, for example). As usual with Priest, what he doesn't say about the characters can be as important as what he does say, leaving the reader with some intriguing interpretive work to do.
However, it's the incredible ending that will sit for the longest in the reader's mind. It maybe isn't as completely mind-blowing as The Separation's conclusion or as deeply haunting and unsettling as The Prestige's, but it's still astonishingly well-written and haunting.
A Dream of Wessex (*****) is a very strong work of science fiction, powerful and thought-provoking and the work of an imaginative author at the height of his powers. What's even more startling is that it isn't even Priest's strongest work. The book is not in print at the moment, although some older copies can be found on Amazon UK and USA.
A Dream of Wessex was originally published in 1977 and was Christopher Priest's fifth novel, following up on the extremely well-received An Inverted World and The Space Machine. Like many of Priest's books, it contains musings on memory, identity, consciousness and reality. The book also describes what looks suspiciously like a prophetic virtual reality cyberspace simulation some years ahead of such things becoming fashionable thanks to cyberpunk.
The novel features Priest's traditional narrative hallmark, namely being written in clear and readable prose through which the author laces several narrative and thematic time bombs that explode in the reader's face at key points (dubbed 'The Priest Effect' by David Langford), including several hours after you finish the book when you suddenly go, "Hang on, does that mean..." and you have to go scurrying back to re-read half the book to confirm your suspicions. Characterisation is excellent, with Julia an interesting protagonist who spends part of the book in fear of her ex-lover, but eventually coming to terms on how to deal with him through internal reasoning rather than a more obvious and melodramatic external form (beating him up or having some big speech, for example). As usual with Priest, what he doesn't say about the characters can be as important as what he does say, leaving the reader with some intriguing interpretive work to do.
However, it's the incredible ending that will sit for the longest in the reader's mind. It maybe isn't as completely mind-blowing as The Separation's conclusion or as deeply haunting and unsettling as The Prestige's, but it's still astonishingly well-written and haunting.
A Dream of Wessex (*****) is a very strong work of science fiction, powerful and thought-provoking and the work of an imaginative author at the height of his powers. What's even more startling is that it isn't even Priest's strongest work. The book is not in print at the moment, although some older copies can be found on Amazon UK and USA.
November 3, 2017
If Christopher Priest has a formula, it can be summed up as two worlds = one character. In A Dream of Wessex, one of Julia Stretton’s worlds is an experiment conducted by the other: a utopian future based around the island of Wessex, formed when seismic activity formed a channel between part of Dorset and the rest of England.
Julia is part of a team that’s supposed to be exploring what a better future might look like. A Dream of Wessex was published in 1977, when Britain was feeling bleaker by the day, though the desire to lose oneself in a better future makes as much sense today as it did then. I’d certainly like to visit the Wessex conjured by the Ridpath projector, though a combination of parameters programmed into it and a blend of the subconsciouses of the characters dreaming inside it. It’s a place where the sun shines, where naked surfers gather around the tidal bore that sweeps through the channel between Wessex and Dorset and where problems are minor and usually self-inflicted.
It wasn’t entirely clear to me how the insights gained in Wessex were supposed to help the austere real world, but then the government soon starts asking the same question. Presumably they’re not employing a gang of experts to indulge in happy dreams, and they’re certainly not impressed by the Soviet-style government of the envisaged future of Britain.
That’s where the serpent enters their Eden, in the form of Julia’s ex-boyfriend. He’s abusive and controlling in his personal life and a bean-counting civil servant in his professional life. It’s impossible not to hate him and when it becomes evident that there’s no way to keep his subconscious from entering, and so joining the shaping of, the paradise of Wessex, it’s not hard to see that this is not going to end well.
A Dream of Wessexcarries Priest’s trademarks in that it starts slowly and ends with what-the-hell-happened-there? I found myself reading it more as a literary novel that makes use of a science fiction setting than as a traditional science fiction novel, though as far as I know, it was the novel that introduced the science fiction device of shared dreaming. It’s probably too slow for the dedicated science fiction reader and too imaginative for the dedicated literary reader but if, like me, you enjoy both genres, you’ll appreciate Wessex.
Julia is part of a team that’s supposed to be exploring what a better future might look like. A Dream of Wessex was published in 1977, when Britain was feeling bleaker by the day, though the desire to lose oneself in a better future makes as much sense today as it did then. I’d certainly like to visit the Wessex conjured by the Ridpath projector, though a combination of parameters programmed into it and a blend of the subconsciouses of the characters dreaming inside it. It’s a place where the sun shines, where naked surfers gather around the tidal bore that sweeps through the channel between Wessex and Dorset and where problems are minor and usually self-inflicted.
It wasn’t entirely clear to me how the insights gained in Wessex were supposed to help the austere real world, but then the government soon starts asking the same question. Presumably they’re not employing a gang of experts to indulge in happy dreams, and they’re certainly not impressed by the Soviet-style government of the envisaged future of Britain.
That’s where the serpent enters their Eden, in the form of Julia’s ex-boyfriend. He’s abusive and controlling in his personal life and a bean-counting civil servant in his professional life. It’s impossible not to hate him and when it becomes evident that there’s no way to keep his subconscious from entering, and so joining the shaping of, the paradise of Wessex, it’s not hard to see that this is not going to end well.
A Dream of Wessexcarries Priest’s trademarks in that it starts slowly and ends with what-the-hell-happened-there? I found myself reading it more as a literary novel that makes use of a science fiction setting than as a traditional science fiction novel, though as far as I know, it was the novel that introduced the science fiction device of shared dreaming. It’s probably too slow for the dedicated science fiction reader and too imaginative for the dedicated literary reader but if, like me, you enjoy both genres, you’ll appreciate Wessex.
March 27, 2019
I read this book about four times when it was new, and am now reading it again after 40 years. I think it was Richard Feynman who said of quantum theory that if you weren't seriously disturbed by it, you hadn't understood it. The same is true of this book. Let's get one thing clear: it's not a story about the future. It is well and truly based in the 1970s (which really were as bad as he makes the decade seem). The 'future' is not so much an imagined future as an alternative present. It is not a utopia, it is simply different. The imagined society is created only for the purposes of the experiment: it takes the form of a more or less benign Soviet bureaucracy imposing a certain order in which small freedoms can flourish up to a point (and thus allow the experiment to proceed). The system would not stand up to analysis, but it doesn't have to, because IT DOESN'T EXIST even within the framework of the story. Any more than a dream 'exists'. Hence the title. Most of the inhabitants are 'ghosts', just like most of those who inhabit our dreams. However, and this is what makes the book so disturbing: we recognize dreams as dreams mainly (and someimes only) because no one else shares them. Here, the experimental dream is shared, and it is because the elaboration of the shared-dream idea is so well carried out that it becomes so disturbing. The people projected into the dream world are unaware of the 'real' world, but they are uneasily semi-aware that they appear to have no real past in the dream world either. There is also a mind-wrenching twist in the tale at the end. This is one of the few books which have stopped me sleeping. Another was Priest's other early work, Inverted World. (While I have read all his later works too, I think these two early ones are his best.)
December 13, 2018
If, by some chance, I could have read this book when it was published (1977) I am pretty sure that I would have been thrilled about the premise and forgiving about the poor characterization, oversimplified plot and banal situations. The premise of projected world within a world within a world and a person's struggle to figure out what is real and what not, would probably blow me away.
However, from the perspective of 2018, after having seen Matrix and, even more relevant in this case, Inception, that premise and the treatment of it is not novel anymore and all the shortcomings become more obvious. This is the first book by Priest where I really struggled to read it (and not because I identified with the protagonists) and got close to quitting couple of times.
Having said all that, there are couple of scenes, especially ones involving surfing on a motorized floating devices that survived the passage of time and are worthy of author's name.
However, from the perspective of 2018, after having seen Matrix and, even more relevant in this case, Inception, that premise and the treatment of it is not novel anymore and all the shortcomings become more obvious. This is the first book by Priest where I really struggled to read it (and not because I identified with the protagonists) and got close to quitting couple of times.
Having said all that, there are couple of scenes, especially ones involving surfing on a motorized floating devices that survived the passage of time and are worthy of author's name.
May 7, 2013
Some nice poetic verging on the mystical lines about Wessex but the characterisations aren't very deep and so much of it is so dated. First published in 1977 it goes on a bit about typewriters and the idea of a futuristic society without computing jars too much to not irritate. I liked the conceit about Dorchester Marina, but otherwise it didn't really engage. You may not be able to judge a book by it's cover ("The flares! The lapels! The shirt collar! The length of his hair!") but some of the phrasing and concepts are incredibly dated. Julia was 'destroyed' by her ex, yet seems to live, walk, breath, eat, have sex a couple of times and fall in love. "Destroying" people seemed to be a preoccupation back then. Odd that you never hear it now.
August 8, 2010
Comment ça finit?
C'est ce qu'un groupe de scientifiques et d'universitaires cherchent à savoir en projetant un futur possible grâce à une machine de leur invention. Se nourrissant de l'inconscient des participants, cette invention pourrait bien vous faire changer d'avis sur la potentialité et la relativité de notre frêle réalité.
En dire plus serait criminel tant Christopher Priest est passé maître dans l'art de nous surprendre par ses fins et ses retournements de situation dans les vingt dernières pages, une fois tous ces jetons posés. On ne peut rester indifférent.
Livre très fort, pour réfléchir.
En soi, hors de soi.
C'est ce qu'un groupe de scientifiques et d'universitaires cherchent à savoir en projetant un futur possible grâce à une machine de leur invention. Se nourrissant de l'inconscient des participants, cette invention pourrait bien vous faire changer d'avis sur la potentialité et la relativité de notre frêle réalité.
En dire plus serait criminel tant Christopher Priest est passé maître dans l'art de nous surprendre par ses fins et ses retournements de situation dans les vingt dernières pages, une fois tous ces jetons posés. On ne peut rester indifférent.
Livre très fort, pour réfléchir.
En soi, hors de soi.
April 14, 2013
This book, like the other Christopher Priest books I have read, kind of made my head hurt a little and I find myself having to slow down (no bad thing) to try and get the timeline/plot/dimension right in my head. Without giving too much away, it's a loop within a loop within a loop, and the kind where you have to sit down and actually conceptualise it, at which point your head either explodes or you realise it doesn't work. I'm not going to tell you which is which! But it's a piece of nice writing, albeit with a style from a different age - you only have to look at the cover to tell - but it works.
March 26, 2019
Virtual reality mixed with collective hallucination, as a group of academics get together to imagine the (a) future into being, and by the end it's hard to be sure what's real and what isn't. Absorbing and unsettling. Notable also for featuring a utopian future in which England is a) communist and b) welcoming to Muslims, and for having a smart, thoughtful female protagonist who is also a sensitively-drawn survivor of domestic abuse.
February 5, 2017
They say that this book was the basis or the inspiration for the movie Inception. Easy to see why... if you liked Inception or even enjoy those kind of concepts, then you'll enjoy this book. On a side note the American version of this book was called "The Perfect Lover" which I found to be a totally ridiculous title. A Dream of Wessex has a nice ring to it and even has promise to it... The Perfect Lover has the ring of a trashy romance novel, lmao what the hell were they thinking?
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