{"id":44974,"date":"2013-06-26T17:06:35","date_gmt":"2013-06-26T16:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=44974"},"modified":"2013-06-27T10:20:07","modified_gmt":"2013-06-27T09:20:07","slug":"the-adjacent-by-christopher-priest-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/reviews\/the-adjacent-by-christopher-priest-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Adjacent by Christopher Priest book review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Christopher Priest is best known for <em>The Prestige<\/em>, a twisty turny tale of two magicians at constant loggerheads, trying to outbest each other through sleight of hand and all other manners of subterfuge (in case you somehow missed it, Christopher Nolan made it into a very good film starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale and, most importantly, David Bowie).<\/p>\n<p>The author likes to pull similar tricks on the reader, as nothing is ever as it seems in a Priest novel, and <em>The Adjacent<\/em> continues this bamboozling, though extremely fun tradition.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Adjacent<\/em> is a perplexing beast, dealing with multiple timelines and characters, including a recently widowed photographer in a near future world, where West London has been levelled by a bomb.<\/p>\n<p>After that opening chapter, we\u2019re suddenly whisked to the first world war (as well as a first person perspective, Priest does like to keep one guessing), where a magician is drafted in to help hide planes from german guns.<\/p>\n<p>In keeping with Priest\u2019s love of melding the fictional with the reality (which in itself is very much in line with what he\u2019s going for. What is real and what is fiction?) the magician runs into one HG Wells, which brings to mind Nikola Tesla\u2019s appearance in <em>The Prestige<\/em>. Just when we\u2019re settled into these two separate narratives, we\u2019re suddenly in World War II. It doesn\u2019t sit around for very long.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Adjacent<\/em> really does keep one on one\u2019s toes, but unlike other novels that are out to turn your brain into a quivering, befuddled jelly, it\u2019s one that stays intriguing without disappearing up its own pipe.<\/p>\n<p>Priest has been around for a while, so he knows how to keep a reader engaged, and <em>The Adjacent<\/em> is no exception. This is a beautifully written novel; humorous, melancholy and always intriguing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reality bending new novel from The Prestige author Christopher Priest<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":44986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Uncategorized","MSN_Publish_Option":false,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[1624,8],"tags":[2247,2083],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/Christopher-Priest-The-Adjacent.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44974"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}