Prestige

In 1878, two young stage magicians clash in the dark during the course 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.

Their rivalry will take them to the peaks of their careers, but with terrible consequences. In the course of pursuing each other's ruin, they will deploy all the deception their magicians' craft can command--the highest misdirection and the darkest science.

Blood will be spilled, but it will not be enough. In the end, their legacy will pass on for generations...to descendants who must, for their sanity's sake, untangle the puzzle left to them. Christopher Priest lives in England. Winner of the World Fantasy AwardWinner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize In 1878, two young stage magicians clash in the dark during the course 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.

Their rivalry will take them to the peaks of their careers, but with terrible consequences. In the course of pursuing each other's ruin, they will deploy all the deception their magicians' craft can commandthe highest misdirection and the darkest science.

Blood will be spilled, but it will not be enough. In the end, their legacy will pass on for generations . . . to descendants who must, for their sanity's sake, untangle the puzzle left to them. The Prestige is now in production as a major motion picture from Newmarket Films, directed by Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins) and starring Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, David Bowie, and Scarlett Johanson. Shooting begins the second week of 2006, aiming for a Fall 2006 release. "A dizzying show of a novel . . . Imagine Possession rewritten by Barbara Vine, or Robertson Davies at his most smoothly diabolical. A brilliantly constructed entertainment!"The Washington Post "A dizzying show of a novel . . . Imagine Possession rewritten by Barbara Vine, or Robertson Davies at his most smoothly diabolical. A brilliantly constructed entertainment!"The Washington Post "Hypnotic . . . The Prestige provides the satisfaction of an ambitious and well-told entertainment."San Francisco Chronicle "A brilliant conjuring act by one of the master illusionists of our time."Wired "Extraordinarylike a dazzling magic act!"Entertainment Weekly "As ingenious as it is suspenseful."Newsday

"Nothing quite prepares you for the sinister complexity and imaginative flair of The Prestige . . . Magnificently eerie."Anthony Quinn, The Sunday Times (London) "Beautifully written . . . Two magicians vie with each other to create the perfect illusion: vanishing from one part of the stage and reappearing instantaneously in another. It's a story of utter fakery and scientific audacity. The pioneer of electrical power, Nikola Tesla, appears in a supporting role; to say more would reveal too much. Priest masters the merging of SF and mainstream, and The Prestige is his finest novel to date."New Scientist "A taut, twisting, prize-winning story of two magicians and their fierce fin-de-siècle rivalry that taints successive generations of their respective families . . . An unexpectedly compelling fusion of weird science and legerdemain."Kirkus Reviews "Remarkably akin to the style of the late Robertson Davies . . . Priest has brought it off with great imagination and skill."Publishers Weekly

"A brilliant conjuring act by one of the master illusionists of our time." –Wired on The Prestige

"One of our most gifted writers." --John Fowles on The Prestige

"Extraordinary--like a dazzling magic act!" --Entertainment Weekly on The Prestige

"A dizzying show of a novel....Imagine Possession rewritten by Barbara Vine, or Robertson Davies at his most smoothly diabolical. A brilliantly constructed entertainment!" --The Washington Post on The Prestige

"As ingenious as it is suspenseful." –Newsday on The Prestige

"Nothing quite prepares you for the sinister complexity and imaginative flair of The Prestige . . . Magnificently eerie." --Anthony Quinn, The Sunday Times

"Beautifully written . . . Two magicians vie with each other to create the perfect illusion: vanishing from one part of the stage and reappearing instantaneously in another. It's a story of utter fakery and scientific audacity. The pioneer of electrical power, Nikola Tesla, appears in a supporting role; to say more would reveal too much. Priest masters the merging of SF and mainstream, and The Prestige is his finest novel to date." --New Scientist on The Prestige

"A taut, twisting, prize-winning story of two magicians and their fierce fin-de-siècle rivalry that taints successive generations of their respective families...An unexpectedly compelling fusion of weird science and legerdemain." --Kirkus on The Prestige

"Remarkably akin to the style of the late Robertson Davies...Priest has brought it off with great imagination and skill." --Publishers Weekly on The Prestige

"Hypnotic...The Prestige provides the satisfaction of an ambitious and well-told entertainment." --San Francisco Chronicle

"The Prestige is in every way a marvelously scary entertainment with one of the creepiest final revelations in recednt years. Don't miss the magic show!" --Gahan Wilson, Realms of Fantasy

"Just as a magic act should be: filled with haunting marvels." --Time Out London on The Prestige Anthony Quinn - Gahan Wilson - John Fowles - Neil Walsh - Stephen R. Donaldson - Jacqueline Carey - Glen Cook - Elizabeth Haydon - David Drake - Robert Charles Wilson - Cory Doctorow - Bret Easton Ellis - Candace Bushnell - Dominick Dunne - Jay McInerney - Jonathan Demme, filmmaker - A.O. Scott - Martin Arnold - Steve Kroft, 60 Minutes - J. B. Priestley - Charles de Lint - Dallas Observer - Jennifer Weiner, author of In Her Shoes and Little Earthquakes - Jay Leno - Laura Zigman, author of Animal Husbandry, Dating Big Bird, and Her - Liz Smith - Gillian Engberg - Clarissa Cruz - Jay Strafford - Hallie Ephron - Patrick Anderson - Walter Jon Williams - S. M. Stirling - Connie Willis, Hugo Award-winning author of To Say Nothing of the Dog - Morgan Llywelyn - Jacqueline Carey - George R.R. Martin - Frederick Busch - Anthony Quinn - Gahan Wilson - John Fowles - Paul Di Filippo - Publishers Weekly - Kirkus Reviews - Romantic Times Bookclub Magazine - Publishers Weekly - Kirkus Reviews - Kirkus Reviews - Booklist - SciFi.com - Entertainment Weekly - Kirkus - New Scientist - Newsday - Publishers Weekly - Realms of Fantasy - San Francisco Chronicle - The Sunday Times - The Washington Post - Time Out London - Wired - Los Angeles Times - Vanity Fair - New York Times Book Review - Rocky Mountain News - Library Journal - Publishers Weekly - Southern Living - Booklist - Publishers Weekly - Romantic Times - Midwest Book Review - Cincinnati Enquirer - Booklist - Publishers Weekly - Booklist - Romantic Times Bookclub - The New York Times - The Washington Times - Los Angeles Times - West Coast Review of Books - Chicago Tribune - Washington Post - Booklist - Chicago Sun-Times - Rocky Mountain News - Chicago Tribune - New York Sun - Publishers Weekly - Fangoria - Horn Book Magazine - School Library Journal - USA Today - Entertainment Weekly - Boston Globe - Richmond Times-Dispatch - Entertainment Weekly - January Magazine - Booklist - Library Journal - Library Journal Review - New York Post - About.com - New York Observer - The New York Times Book Review - Publishers Weekly - The Knoxville News-Sentinel - The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction - Midwest Book Review - Santa Barbara News-Press - Newsweek - Library Journal - Greenwich Magazine - Time Out New York - New York Times Book Review - San Francisco Chronicle - Booklist (starred review) - Booklist - Kirkus Reviews - Publishers Weekly (starred) - Washington Post Book World - Publishers Weekly, starred review - Kirkus Reviews - Publishers Weekly - School Library Journal - Kirkus Reviews - Publishers Weekly - Altair - TV Week (Australia) - Publishers Weekly (starred review) - SF Site - New York Observer - The Economist - Publishers Weekly - Enigma - SF Site - Entertainment Weekly - Kirkus - New Scientist - Newsday - Publishers Weekly - Realms of Fantasy - San Francisco Chronicle - The Sunday Times - The Washington Post - Time Out London - Wired

--Wired on The Prestige

"One of our most gifted writers."

--John Fowles on The Prestige

"Extraordinary--like a dazzling magic act!"

--Entertainment Weekly on The Prestige

"A dizzying show of a novel....Imagine Possession rewritten by Barbara Vine, or Robertson Davies at his most smoothly diabolical. A brilliantly constructed entertainment!"

--The Washington Post on The Prestige

"As ingenious as it is suspenseful."

--Newsday on The Prestige

"Nothing quite prepares you for the sinister complexity and imaginative flair of The Prestige . . . Magnificently eerie."

--Anthony Quinn, The Sunday Times

"Beautifully written . . . Two magicians vie with each other to create the perfect illusion: vanishing from one part of the stage and reappearing instantaneously in another. It's a story of utter fakery and scientific audacity. The pioneer of electrical power, Nikola Tesla, appears in a supporting role; to say more would reveal too much. Priest masters the merging of SF and mainstream, and The Prestige is his finest novel to date."

--New Scientist on The Prestige

"A taut, twisting, prize-winning story of two magicians and their fierce fin-de-siècle rivalry that taints successive generations of their respective families...An unexpectedly compelling fusion of weird science and legerdemain."

--Kirkus on The Prestige

"Remarkably akin to the style of the late Robertson Davies...Priest has brought it off with great imagination and skill."

--Publishers Weekly on The Prestige

"Hypnotic...The Prestige provides the satisfaction of an ambitious and well-told entertainment."

--San Francisco Chronicle

"The Prestige is in every way a marvelously scary entertainment with one of the creepiest final revelations in recent years. Don't miss the magic show!"

--Gahan Wilson, Realms of Fantasy

"Just as a magic act should be: filled with haunting marvels."

--Time Out London on The Prestige

--Wired on The Prestige

"One of our most gifted writers."

--John Fowles on The Prestige

"Extraordinary--like a dazzling magic act!"

--Entertainment Weekly on The Prestige

"A dizzying show of a novel....Imagine Possession rewritten by Barbara Vine, or Robertson Davies at his most smoothly diabolical. A brilliantly constructed entertainment!"

--The Washington Post on The Prestige

"As ingenious as it is suspenseful."

--Newsday on The Prestige

"Nothing quite prepares you for the sinister complexity and imaginative flair of The Prestige . . . Magnificently eerie."

--Anthony Quinn, The Sunday Times

"Beautifully written . . . Two magicians vie with each other to create the perfect illusion: vanishing from one part of the stage and reappearing instantaneously in another. It's a story of utter fakery and scientific audacity. The pioneer of electrical power, Nikola Tesla, appears in a supporting role; to say more would reveal too much. Priest masters the merging of SF and mainstream, and The Prestige is his finest novel to date."

--New Scientist on The Prestige

"A taut, twisting, prize-winning story of two magicians and their fierce fin-de-siècle rivalry that taints successive generations of their respective families...An unexpectedly compelling fusion of weird science and legerdemain."

--Kirkus on The Prestige

"Remarkably akin to the style of the late Robertson Davies...Priest has brought it off with great imagination and skill."

--Publishers Weekly on The Prestige

"Hypnotic...The Prestige provides the satisfaction of an ambitious and well-told entertainment."

--San Francisco Chronicle

"The Prestige is in every way a marvelously scary entertainment with one of the creepiest final revelations in recent years. Don't miss the magic show!"

--Gahan Wilson, Realms of Fantasy

"Just as a magic act should be: filled with haunting marvels."

--Time Out London on The Prestige

Questions for Discussion

1. Historic and literary “family feuds” range from Shakespeares Montagues and Capulets to the Hatfields and McCoys. Could the Angiers and Bordens have ended theirs at some point, or was it predestined to continue through the years? Must the sins of the fathers be passed to other generations? Did the feud join the families as much as it separated them?

2. “Readers should be made to work a bit and they shouldnt take anything for granted,” as Priest wrote in the magazine Locus. “For me, the unreliable narrator keeps people alert. Some people get fed up with it and cant be bothered, but the people I think of as serious readers very much like it.” Into which category did you find yourself falling, and why?

3. The use of the ampersand (&) instead of the word “and” is one way in which the author differentiates between the two “voices” in Bordens book. What are some others? Do such devices make the story easier to comprehend, or confuse the reader even further?

4. Noting that Angiers clients derive genuine comfort from his fraudulent séances, Borden asks, “Was any of this so different from the pleasurable mystification a magician gives to his music hall audience?” Do you agree? Do such séances help or hurt the participants?

5. Both Angier and Borden routinely cheat on their wives. What does this say about their characters in general? Is it more likely in those “whose very profession is deception?”

6. Borden recounts the story of Ching Ling Foo, who affected a shuffling gait onstage and off to protect his greatest illusion. To what lengths does Borden go to conceal the secret of The New Transported Man? Does he lie to himself, as well as to the outside world?

7. The Prestige exemplifies Priests self-described “fascination with doppelgangers and twins.” What are some of the ways in which this theme is incorporated, either overtly or subtly? Do you see Angier and Borden as essentially opposite sides of the same coin?

8. Classics like Alexandre Dumas pères The Corsican Brothers depict twins as having a unique, almost telepathic bond. Do you believe that such a bond really exists? In what ways does Priest play with the traditions and expectations associated with this concept?

9. As in Akira Kurosawas film Rashomon, Priest sometimes depicts the same events from multiple perspectives, especially the incident that sets the feud into motion. Did you trust one account more than the other? Why? Does subjectivity always affect our perception?

10. Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” At what point did you begin to suspect that at least one magician used science in his stage act? Does this push The Prestige from fantasy into the realm of science fiction?

11. Many critics have compared the writing of The Prestige to a feat of magic in itself. Do you agree? In what ways do the style, structure, and showmanship of the novel mirror those of magicians? Does Priest play fair with the reader? Did you guess his “secrets?”

12. Priest uses real-life electrical pioneer Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) as a character, depicting him as a bitter rival of Thomas Edisons. Does Priest portray Tesla accurately? Does the use of such historical figures make a story more believable for you, or is it a distraction?

13. Angier calls Tesla “a prophet of what the next century will hold for us.” How does Priest use the turn of the century as a backdrop? Do his characters adapt well to such changes?

14. The forthcoming film version of The Prestige stars Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as rival magicians Angier and Borden. With its complex structure and multiple—sometimes unreliable—narrators, does the novel naturally lend itself to adaptation in the first place? How might a screenwriter alter or compress the story to turn the book into a viable script? "A brilliant conjuring act by one of the master illusionists of our time."

Wired

San Francisco Chronicle

The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

Their rivalry will take them to the peaks of their careers, but with terrible consequences. In the course of pursuing each other's ruin, they will deploy all the deception their magicians' craft can command -- the highest misdirection and the darkest science.

Blood will be spilled, but it will not be enough. In the end, their legacy will pass on for generations...to descendants who must, for their sanity's sake, untangle the puzzle left to them.

Their rivalry will take them to the peaks of their careers, but with terrible consequences. In the course of pursuing each other's ruin, they will deploy all the deception their magicians' craft can command--the highest misdirection and the darkest science.

Blood will be spilled, but it will not be enough. In the end, their legacy will pass on for generations...to descendants who must, for their sanity's sake, untangle the puzzle left to them.

Soon to be a major motion picture starring HUGH JACKMAN, SCARLETT JOHANSSON, CHRISTIAN BALE, DAVID BOWIE, MICHAEL CAINE, ANDY SERKIS and directed by CHRISTOPHER NOLAN!

While on a transatlantic trip with her soon-to-be-fiancé Derek, Elizabeth unexpectedly runs into ex-lover Arthur, with whom she shares a shady past: The pair once worked as traveling spiritual mediums who conned the vulnerable by pretending to contact the spirits of departed loved ones. While Derek remains seasick and cabin-bound, Elizabeth wanders the ship, alternately avoiding and seeking out Arthur. Unable to avoid memories of their fractured past, she must face the deception they practiced even as she accepts the peace they brought to the grief-stricken who sought their services. 

Intimately addressed to “you,” the reader, The Blue Book is both a portrait of two methodical con artists and a meditation on “how love is a private language, a set of codes, to which the outside world ought not admit impediment” (Telegraph). Irresistibly written, by turns comically wry and stunningly lyrical, with “some of the most unashamedly erotic writing since Nicholson Baker first contemplated a telephone receiver” (New Statesman), the book slowly, deliberately, and devastatingly reveals itself to the reader. The heartbreaking stakes are ultimately nothing less than fact and fiction, life and death.