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BarcodeComment: Islanders-islands-book-great-gazetteer-novel-3557900496
Masterfully thought-provoking and intelligent., September 28, 2011
The Islanders
Reality is illusory and magical in the stunning new literary sci-fi novel from the multiple award-winning author of The Prestige--for fans of Haruki Murakami and David Mitchell This is a tale of ...The Dream Archipelago is a vast string of thousands of islands, wrapping themselves around the world between two great continents. Some of them are deserts, some are home to great cities and others have been riddled with tunnels and turned into gigantic musical instruments. The Islanders is a gazetteer to the islands...and a murder story. It's also a musing on the nature of art and the artists who make it.The Islanders is Christopher Priest's first novel in almost a decade, a fact which itself makes it one of the most interesting books to be released this year. His previous novel, The Separation, a stimulating and layered book about alternate versions of WWII, was one of the very finest novels of the 2000s. True to expectations, Priest has returned with a fiercely intelligent book that works on multiple different levels and which rewards close, thoughtful reading.The Islanders initially appears to be a travel gazetteer, a Lonely Planet guide to a place that...
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| Author: A. Whitehead "Werthead" .. | The Dream Archipelago is a vast string of thousands of islands, wrapping themselves around the world between two great continents. Some of them are deserts, some are home to great cities and others have been riddled with tunnels and turned into gigantic musical instruments. The Islanders is a gazetteer to the islands...and a murder story. It's also a musing on the nature of art and the artists who make it.The Islanders is Christopher Priest's first novel in almost a decade, a fact which itself makes it one of the most interesting books to be released this year. His previous novel, The Separation, a stimulating and layered book about alternate versions of WWII, was one of the very finest novels of the 2000s. True to expectations, Priest has returned with a fiercely intelligent book that works on multiple different levels and which rewards close, thoughtful reading.The Islanders initially appears to be a travel gazetteer, a Lonely Planet guide to a place that... | 8 | |
| Author: Simone Oltolina (Milan, .. | Christopher Priest is one of those authors that give a good name to genre fiction. So much so in fact that I've repeatedly seen his novels described as `literary Science Fiction', as opposed to, I guess, something like `commodity Science Fiction' or `throwaway SF'.Priest has won a number of prizes, most recently the BSFA's (it was the fourth time, if memory serves). Still, he's so good that I wouldn't be surprised if his name popped up in something like the Man Booker's shortlist, alongside Murakami or David Mitchell.`The Islanders' was a very surprising novel for me. It started out slowly and then it picked up steam, in a very subtle and inventive way.It presents itself as a guidebook to an imaginary `Dream Archipelago', with a foreword written by the first among a long list of unreliable narrators. Each chapter is then devoted to just one island but don't expect your average travel writing. Some chapters are quasi-technical descriptions of the... | 8 | |
| Author: checkers - See all my r.. | Perhaps this is a great novel to some, but I hated it. You have to be REALLY into digging out information that is so deeply layered you feel like you need Sparks notes to get to the bottom of it. At some point in a novel, there has to be a level of enjoyment or intrigue, but with characters who may or may not be characters, and plotlines that may or may not exist, you never know what you're looking for, and the ride becomes dull. One of my least favorite reads ever. | 6 | |
