 First edition | |
| Author | Christopher Priest |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Grady McFerrin |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Gollancz |
Publication date | 2011 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 339pp |
| ISBN | 0-575-07004-8 |
The Islanders is a 2011 science fiction novel by British writer Christopher Priest.
The Islanders is written as a guidebook to a series of fictional islands, using the literary device of an unreliable narrator. As it portrays and describes a number of the exotic islands, the specific details shift as the story is told, including the names and locations. There are islands that have been sculpted into vast musical instruments, others are home to lethal creatures, others the playground for high society.
The story is set in the same world as Priest's 1981 novel The Affirmation , as well as his short story collection The Dream Archipelago (1999). The stories all share in common their use of an unreliable narrator.
Publishers Weekly wrote: "British novelist Priest (The Prestige) creates a mind-bending, head-scratching book (already much lauded in the U.K.) that pretends to be a gazetteer of the Dream Archipelago, uncountable islands spread around a world whose temporal and spatial anomalies make such a project futile. The dispassionate descriptions of separate islands include odd references out of which it's possible to begin assembling a cast of characters: maniac artists, social reformers, murderers, scientific researchers, and passionate lovers. Some of these categories overlap, and all the actors are maddeningly fragmented, apt to fade away or flash intensely to life. Interpolated bits of directly personal narratives sometimes clarify and sometimes muddy the story (or stories), while uncanny events struggle to escape the gazetteers' avowedly objective control and Priest's elegant, cool prose. The result is wonderfully fascinating, if occasionally frustrating, and entirely unforgettable." [1] The Guardian wrote "The trip Christopher Priest takes us on in The Islanders is not such an easy-going one. Descriptions of the islands are often of the prevailing climate, currents, winds and other technical information. ... Still, piecing together the rather unpleasant lives of the main characters is entertaining; and there are episodes complete in themselves, short stories really, which are satisfying." [2]
The Islanders won the 2011 BSFA Award for Best Novel [3] and in 2012 came joint first (with Joan Slonczewski) in the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. [4]
Dan Simmons is an American science fiction and horror writer. He is the author of the Hyperion Cantos and the Ilium/Olympos cycles, among other works that span the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres, sometimes within a single novel. Simmons's genre-intermingling Song of Kali (1985) won the World Fantasy Award. He also writes mysteries and thrillers, some of which feature the continuing character Joe Kurtz.
A Song of Ice and Fire is a series of high fantasy novels by the American author George R. R. Martin. He began writing the first volume, A Game of Thrones, in 1991, and published it in 1996. Martin, who originally envisioned the series as a trilogy, has so far released five out of seven planned volumes. The fifth and most recent entry in the series, A Dance with Dragons, was published in 2011. Martin continues to write the sixth novel, titled The Winds of Winter. A seventh novel, A Dream of Spring, is planned to follow.
Gene Rodman Wolfe was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. He was noted for his dense, allusive prose as well as the strong influence of his Catholic faith. He was a prolific short story writer and novelist, and won many literary awards. Wolfe has been called "the Melville of science fiction", and was honored as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
Jeff VanderMeer is an American author, editor, and literary critic. Initially associated with the New Weird literary genre, VanderMeer crossed over into mainstream success with his bestselling Southern Reach Series. The series' first novel, Annihilation, won the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Awards, and was adapted into a Hollywood film by director Alex Garland. Among VanderMeer's other novels are Shriek: An Afterword and Borne. He has also edited with his wife Ann VanderMeer such influential and award-winning anthologies as The New Weird, The Weird, and The Big Book of Science Fiction.
Michael Swanwick is an American fantasy and science fiction author who began publishing in the early 1980s.
Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the audience, particularly about the plot: the series of events. Narration is a required element of all written stories, presenting the story in its entirety. It is optional in most other storytelling formats, such as films, plays, television shows and video games, in which the story can be conveyed through other means, like dialogue between characters or visual action.
Christopher Mackenzie Priest was a British novelist and science fiction writer. His works include Fugue for a Darkening Island (1972), The Inverted World (1974), The Affirmation (1981), The Glamour (1984), The Prestige (1995), and The Separation (2002).
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The Prestige is a 1995 science fiction novel by British writer Christopher Priest. It tells the story of a prolonged feud between two stage magicians in late 1800s England. Its structure is that of a collection of diaries that were kept by the protagonists and later collated. The title derives from the novel's fictional practice of stage illusions having three parts: the setup, the performance, and the prestige (effect).
Graham William Joyce was a British writer of speculative fiction and the recipient of numerous awards, including the O. Henry Award, the World Fantasy Award, and six times the British Fantasy Award for both his novels and short stories.
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... I had been awed and delighted by Josh Koenig, and I instantly thought of just such a child who was arrested in time at the age of five. Jeffty, in no small measure, is Josh: the sweetness of Josh, the intelligence of Josh, the questioning nature of Josh.
The Separation is a novel by British writer Christopher Priest, published in 2002. It is an alternate history revolving around the experiences of identical twin brothers during the Second World War, during which one becomes a pilot for the RAF, and the other, a conscientious objector, becomes an ambulance driver for the Red Cross. The author introduces a deliberate confusion by giving these brothers identical initials – J.L. Sawyer – one known as Jack and the other as Joe.
The Extremes is a 1998 science fiction novel by the English writer Christopher Priest. The novel received the BSFA Award.
The Affirmation is a 1981 science fiction novel by British writer Christopher Priest. The book follows the story of Peter Sinclair, who begins creating fantasy fiction, only to find his life merging with that of protagonist. The novel eventually earned praise among reviewers as one of Priest's best works.
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The Lover's Dictionary is a novel by American author David Levithan, published January 4, 2011 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. It is his first novel for adults. This modern love story is told entirely through dictionary entries.
An Infinite Summer is the second collection of science fiction short stories by British writer Christopher Priest and the first of his books to collect stories set in the Dream Archipelago. The stories had all previously been published in various anthologies and magazines; they may be described, somewhat interchangeably, as science fiction, fantasy literature, metafiction and macabre.
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Ice is a novel by British writer Anna Kavan, published in 1967. Ice was Kavan's last work to be published before her death, the first to land her mainstream success, and remains her best-known work. Generally regarded as genre-defying, it has been labelled a work of science fiction, Nouveau roman, and slipstream fiction.
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