Rating: 
Summary: Winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel
Review: "A brilliantly constructed entertainment." ---Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World
"You are guaranteed to enjoy this brilliant conjuring act by one of the master illusionists of our time." ---Marc Laidlaw, Wired
"And the result is a surprise that marvelously satisfies the myriad genres---gothic, thriller, science fiction---that Priest has successfully managed to merge and transform in this eerie fictional sleight of hand. A-" --Megan Harlan, Entertainment Weekly
"Absolutely super." ---Don D'Ammassa, Science Fiction Chronicle
"Enthrallingly odd." ---Publishers Weekly
"Electrifying." ---Kirkus Reviews
Rating: 
Summary: A bright failure
Review: "The Prestige" starts off brilliantly enough--some of the ideas on the nature of illusion gave me shivers (particularly the story of another magician feigning an illness for his entire life in order to conceal the secret behind his greatest trick.) I really thought I was onto something having discovered this book; the first two sections hinted at a deeply intertwined plot and more brilliance to come.The third section slows considerably, though, and crawls through lengthy explanations of the "secrets" behind implausible stage effects. In the end, the plot stumbles and limps its way to a contrived and predictable thud at the end. (Actually a bit of a surprise: that a novel that started so well would end so poorly--but that's not a welcome surprise.) I thought that perhaps the printer had left out the final chapter, the one that would tie the two time frames of the narrative together, or explain the deeper meaning behind the story. Sadly, that was all there was to it: A big disappointment.
Rating: 
Summary: What you see isn't always what you get.
Review: 'Prestige' is the technical term used in stage magic and refers to the effect of a conjurer's display, such as producing a rabbit from a hat, or turning water into wine. In this case, Christopher Priest's sleighty-writing talent has turned a dark tale of the obsessive rivalry between two late-Victorian stage-magicians into a masterpiece of art and illusion. The first character, Alfred Borden, tells how his youthful fascination with the card-trick, 'Find the Lady,' led him to develop an act named 'The New Transported Man' - he steps inside a cabinet on one side of the stage and closes the door. An instant later, he steps out of an identical cabinet on the opposite side of the stage, just as the first box collapses, Borden apparently having miraculously crossed the intervening distance. The audience knows it is a simple but clever trick and applaud, because they too will have been transported, as well as entertained and mystified. Borden's artistry relies on the solid craftsmanship of the cabinet-maker, as he knows that anything made of wood lends itself to "solid normality." However, the setting is at the turn of the century and amazing new scientific discoveries are begging to get in on the act. Borden's rival is Rupert Angier; he performs a similar trick, but much more quickly and mysteriously because he has employed the techno-talents of the eccentric electrical wizard, Nikola Tesla. Angier becomes famous too, dazzling his audience with special effects - the brighter the light, the greater the ensuing darkness and the sense of wonder. Thus Angier's new scientific act successfully replaced the familiar magical show, yet remained magical because it was presented by a skilled performance-artist. And as the often-quoted Arthur C Clarke said, "Any sufficiently-advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." As the history unfolds in the form of supposedly-truthful diaries - both Borden and Angier deceive in print as well as on stage - we begin to wonder how many magicians it takes to turn a trick - are there perhaps twins,secret brothers, exact doubles, or could bi-location be the answer? Throughout the ages, religious mystics have reportedly appeared in two places at once, but unlike warring wizards, they do not set out to deceive, wishing to be known for truth and honesty. Women do feature in the story, but as with many of today's male quiz-show hosts, they provide a supporting role, except for one lady who has a dual identity. At one point, she promises to reveal the secrets of one magican to the other, for it is hard for true love to thrive in an atmosphere of distrust and deliberate deceit. Towards the end, with the reported demise of the heroes (or anti-heroes, Christopher Priest convinces us of the horror of duplicity, yet allows for our love of a genuine fake. To reveal more details of the plot would spoil the reader's enjoyment - there are few of us who remain enchanted by an illusion once we know how it is done. "The Prestige" is the genuine article, a tale for our times, with the shades of H G Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson and Mary Shelly all invisibly hovering in the wings. Finally it's worth noting that the author has surreptitiously given two of his novels almost-similar titles, so he too should be labelled an arch-conjuror, alongside his fascinatingly-flawed invented characters. I refer to "The Glamour," published in 1984, whose theme is invisibility. The Oxford English Dictionary defines 'glamour' as 'magic, enchantment, spell,' whilst 'prestige' is defined as 'illusion, conjuring-trick or deception.' In my view, both books are essential reading if you believe that what you see always what you get. .
Rating: 
Summary: AbracaPocus! PocusCadabra! Walla walla washington!
Review: ...As you can see, my hands are empty... Have you noticed that people either loved this book or they hated it? And I mean, they either LUUUUVED it or they H-A-T-E-D it. (Not a lot of middle of the roaders.) So, the $100 question is "Are YOU going to love or hate reading this book?" Well, it depends. ...Nothing up my sleeve... The back of the book synopsizes the story with this quote, "In 1878, two young stage magicians clash in the dark during the source of a fraudulent séance. From this moment on, their lives become webs of deceit and revelation as they vie to outwit and expose one another." ...Now watch closely... The Prestige is about magic, and in today's world, magic has become a dirty word. Movie special effects and technology rationalize just about any act of illusion for us and Three Card Monte is a shame, nothing more than an effort to rob you of your hard-earned money. When did we get such a bug up our preverbal butts about something as simple as slight of hand, misdirection or science used to entertain? Everyone MUST know how IT is really done. ...PRESTO... Will you like this book? It all comes down to this: Do you need a definitive answer from your books and movies? If you hated The Blair Witch Project and other stories that left the answers "out there" or up to your imagination then you are not going to like this book. There were a few people who said, "This book ended too early." I'm guessing what they really meant to say was, "he didn't show us how he did it." ...(Stunned silence)... The Prestige is an excellent book, but not for everyone. The characters are complicated and rich. I enjoyed the distinct narrative voices and Priest's research into the world of magic. It's a book about misdirection and The Rabbit That Comes Out of the Magician's Hat. But if you want a book that spells it out, a book that tells you who is right and who is wrong then the Prestige is not the next book for you. ...(Applause)...
Rating:
Summary: AbracaPocus! PocusCadabra! Walla walla washington!
Review: ...As you can see, my hands are empty... Have you noticed that people either loved this book or they hated it? And I mean, they either LUUUUVED it or they H-A-T-E-D it. (Not a lot of middle of the roaders.) So, the $100 question is "Are YOU going to love or hate reading this book?" Well, it depends. ...Nothing up my sleeve... The back of the book synopsizes the story with this quote, "In 1878, two young stage magicians clash in the dark during the source of a fraudulent séance. From this moment on, their lives become webs of deceit and revelation as they vie to outwit and expose one another." ...Now watch closely... The Prestige is about magic, and in today's world, magic has become a dirty word. Movie special effects and technology rationalize just about any act of illusion for us and Three Card Monte is a shame, nothing more than an effort to rob you of your hard-earned money. When did we get such a bug up our preverbal butts about something as simple as slight of hand, misdirection or science used to entertain? Everyone MUST know how IT is really done. ...PRESTO... Will you like this book? It all comes down to this: Do you need a definitive answer from your books and movies? If you hated The Blair Witch Project and other stories that left the answers "out there" or up to your imagination then you are not going to like this book. There were a few people who said, "This book ended too early." I'm guessing what they really meant to say was, "he didn't show us how he did it." ...(Stunned silence)... The Prestige is an excellent book, but not for everyone. The characters are complicated and rich. I enjoyed the distinct narrative voices and Priest's research into the world of magic. It's a book about misdirection and The Rabbit That Comes Out of the Magician's Hat. But if you want a book that spells it out, a book that tells you who is right and who is wrong then the Prestige is not the next book for you. ...(Applause)...
Rating:
Summary: deserves a wider audience
Review: Christopher Priest must be one of the most decorated but unread authors around. In 1983 he was named one of the Best of Young British Novelists. And The Prestige won both the World Fantasy Award and Britain's James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Meanwhile, I'd never heard of him and when the book got some good reviews over here, it was a NY Times notable book, I couldn't find it anywhere. Bur I'm glad I finally got ahold of a copy, because the novel lives up to the hype. Priest tells the story of two turn of the century magicians, Rupert Angier and Alfred Borden, who are first rivals and then bitter enemies as what starts out as an attempt to learn each others secrets deteriorates into obsessive hatred and is even handed down to succeeding generations. Eventually their efforts to top one anothers latest tricks draw Nikola Tesla into the picture. Angier travels to Colorado to see if Tesla's experiments with electricity have any magical implications. They do and the results are predictably, but delightfully, horrifying. It's pretty hard to describe this novel without giving too much of the story away. It's also a story that invites comparison; I saw reviewer references to The Alienist, Robertson Davies, John Fowles, H.G. Wells, etc. Suffice it to say, the writing is terrific, the story is original but harkens back to classic themes and the tension he builds is palpable. My only complaint is that it either ended abruptly or simply before I wanted it to; I'm not sure which. Find it and read it. You won't want it to end either. GRADE: A
Rating:
Summary: deserves a wider audience
Review: Christopher Priest must be one of the most decorated but unread authors around. In 1983 he was named one of the Best of Young British Novelists. And The Prestige won both the World Fantasy Award and Britain's James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Meanwhile, I'd never heard of him and when the book got some good reviews over here, it was a NY Times notable book, I couldn't find it anywhere. Bur I'm glad I finally got ahold of a copy, because the novel lives up to the hype. Priest tells the story of two turn of the century magicians, Rupert Angier and Alfred Borden, who are first rivals and then bitter enemies as what starts out as an attempt to learn each others secrets deteriorates into obsessive hatred and is even handed down to succeeding generations. Eventually their efforts to top one anothers latest tricks draw Nikola Tesla into the picture. Angier travels to Colorado to see if Tesla's experiments with electricity have any magical implications. They do and the results are predictably, but delightfully, horrifying. It's pretty hard to describe this novel without giving too much of the story away. It's also a story that invites comparison; I saw reviewer references to The Alienist, Robertson Davies, John Fowles, H.G. Wells, etc. Suffice it to say, the writing is terrific, the story is original but harkens back to classic themes and the tension he builds is palpable. My only complaint is that it either ended abruptly or simply before I wanted it to; I'm not sure which. Find it and read it. You won't want it to end either. GRADE: A
Rating:
Summary: Double your pleasure, double your fun
Review: Christopher Priest's _the Prestige_ is an entertaining read; well written fantasy without asking us to view the world in any particular new way. _The Prestige's_ greatest strength lies in its ability to harken back to a Victorian style of writing while maintaining modern sensibilities of fiction. The Victorian aspect comes from Priest's use of the diary and memoir style to develop most of the plot. He presents to us the story of a rivalry told from the points of view of the rivals, magicians Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier. Both have reasonably excellent ability in performance and skill in their trade. Priest is successful in giving each of these gentlemen separate voices. (actually creating six separate voices total; not an easy task in one novel). It is faintly reminiscent of Stoker's _Dracula_ or Hogg's _Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner_. The other particularly Victorian (and gothic) aspect is the novel's obession with the theme of duality, doubles and the dopelganger. Here we have our Dr. Jekylls and Mr. Hydes, Frankenstein and his monster, and even _Invasion of Body Snatchers_ played out in the novel. Throw in some really neat stuff about stage magicians in general--Alfred Borden's "Pact" with the audience is one of the most interesting philosophical discussions about the stage i've ever read--and you have one quite entertaining and pleasing novel. So put a little magical reading into your evenings and enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Carter beats this too.
Review: Compared to the longer, denser 'Carter Beats The Devil', this, somehow, is a plod. While Glen Gold's box of tricks manages to immerse the reader in the charms of a bygone age of stage magic, Priest slogs away with a writing style that's either intentionally stiff or simply soporific. Sure, there's a whiff of metaphor here, a moment of meta-fiction there. But for all the ideas that Priest manages to unearth, from questions of identity and masquerade to Rashamon-like "truth", he'd have been better off handing off an outline to a writer who could make the thing sizzle on the page. This splutters. The writing style may be excused as presumably consistent with the era Priest is trying to evoke. But the modern day introduction, told from the perspective of one Andrew Westley, is amateurish. A cardboard narrator who deserves to be pulped. There are some intriguing notions here and there in The Prestige, but it's determinedly dull in places. A disappointing "recommendation" that I didn't particularly hate, but would have gladly done without. Fans of 'Carter...' would be advised not to bother. Those who've missed 'Carter...' should skip past this and not look back.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, and not just empty fun
Review: I am surprised by some of the criticisms made by other reviewers, and felt moved to rebut some of them. This is an excellent book, certainly great fun but also more than that. I don't want to spoil the book's surprises for others, so I'll simply say that the secrets the magicians keep, especially the biggest ones, are metaphors for our public and private lives, and how surprised others might be to see what we look like off stage. Early on, one of the characters states that magicians defend their secrets not because those secrets are huge but because they are so mundane that the audience will yawn and condescend, which also is true of most of us - but certainly not these particular magicians. The complaint that the characters are unbelievable also surprises me. They make highminded promises to take the high road, and then their pride and emotions get the better of them time and again, and they rationalize their way into actions they later regret. That doesn't sound credible? Sure does to me. One reviewer laments that the diaries omit mundane entries. Of course they do - this is a novel, not a diary. The author must keep the story going without sidetracking into meaningless distractions. The diary structure allows us to discover and intuit portions of the story that are not, or not at first, explicitly shown, due to differing viewpoints. As to un-Victorian phrasing, I cannot judge, but for that reason it never caused me any consternation. I found this a terrific novel, not just a tasty story, although the careful unfolding of the plot is indeed great storytelling.
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