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Title: The Prestige

Author: Christopher Priest

Narrator: Simon Vance

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-06-06

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1829 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

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 each other. In the course of pursuing each other's ruin, they will deploy all the deception their magician's craft can command. Their rivalry will take them to the peaks of their careers, but with terrible consequences. In the end, their legacy will be passed on for generations to descendants who must, for their sanity's sake, untangle the puzzle left to them.

©1995 Christopher Priest (P)2006 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Critic Reviews:

"Extraordinary, like a dazzling magic act!" (Entertainment Weekly) "A brilliant conjuring act by one of the master illusionists of our time." (Wired) "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)

Members Reviews:

One of a Kind.

Christopher Priest is primarily considered a science fiction writer, but his scope his much broader and I think it would be reasonable to say that he more an explorer of the human psyche. His main themes are perception, truth and reality, his canvas a kind of Jungian dreamscape. With the Prestige he has combined the elements he most favors and presented them in a story that rises above any simple categorization. In short this novel is a revelation. The story concerns with two Victorian era magicians, each blaming the other for the circumstances which have led them into a growing cycle of revenge and retribution. Here we are confronted by two versions of one story as each man makes his case against the other. But it is an illusion called The new transformed man which becomes the main focus as both men become obsessed with unraveling each others professional secrets. But the story does not end here, the consequences of their actions resound through the generations to the present day where we are introduced to two of their descendents who are both struggling to confront the truth of their own situations. He is haunted by a voice he cannot define, she is the keeper of secrets that have consumed her life. Throughout this story the writer involves the reader, respecting our intelligence and challenging our perceptions. But putting all this aside, Priest certainly knows how to write a good rip roaring yarn one that quietly builds to a crescendo, mesmerizing the reader until we are desperate for some kind of resolution, but be warned, Priest does not do straightforward endings. If you have seen the screen adaptation do not forgo the book, for while the film is faithful to the tone of the story, the book is more complete and thorough entity.