"I had reached the age of 650 miles" – Christopher Priest, 1943-2024

February 3, 2024 5:57 AM

British sf writer Christopher Priest has died at 80. Born in 1943, Christopher Priest came to prominence in the early 1970s with works such as Inverted World, the opening line of which form the quote for this post. Over a career spanning several decades (his last novel, Airside, was published in 2023) Priest received the British Science Fiction Association Award four times between 1974 and 2011, as well as several Hugo Award nominations. His best-known work may well be The Prestige , filmed in 2006.
posted by Major Clanger (25 comments total)

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posted by cupcakeninja at 6:02 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]

Inverted World is such an acid trip of a novel. I should re-re-read it sometime.

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posted by seanmpuckett at 6:12 AM on February 3 [5 favorites]

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posted by GenjiandProust at 6:18 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]

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posted by lalochezia at 6:21 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]

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posted by Proofs and Refutations at 6:25 AM on February 3

With his enduring interest in what happens when subjective reality starts to infect the outside world he was a kind of literary and humane version of PKD.
The Affirmation is a book that haunts me, although it took a while before I realized the trick shot he made with the ending.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 6:26 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]

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posted by cstross at 6:55 AM on February 3

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posted by sarble at 7:19 AM on February 3

Inverted World is stuck in my brain like an earworm. Not a great story perhaps, but the persistent claustrophobic image of the contracting world is something else.

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posted by bleston hamilton station at 7:47 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]

. I still think about Inverted World
posted by inpHilltr8r at 10:10 AM on February 3

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posted by kyrademon at 10:52 AM on February 3

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posted by gentlyepigrams at 11:13 AM on February 3

His 'Dream Archipelago' stories & novels resonated with me - I'm very sad to hear this.
posted by misteraitch at 1:08 PM on February 3

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posted by foleypt at 2:10 PM on February 3

I am grateful for his work "The Book on the Edge of Forever" (also known as "Last Deadloss Visions"), which helped me better understand the context and controversy over Harlan Ellison's unpublished Last Dangerous Visions anthology.

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posted by brainwane at 4:29 PM on February 3 [2 favorites]

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posted by adekllny at 4:41 PM on February 3

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posted by mdoar at 5:54 PM on February 3

Such a writer! His A Dream of Wessex is a fantastic read and a clear inspiration for Vurt.
posted by meehawl at 6:14 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]

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posted by verbminx at 7:26 PM on February 3

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posted by doctornemo at 8:00 PM on February 3

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posted by crocomancer at 2:36 AM on February 4

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posted by kitten kaboodle at 1:44 PM on February 4

I'm another who found Inverted World surreally memorable. As a child, my local library did not have a big selection of science fiction, and most that they had was the expected classics of the time, a lot of Asimov and so on. So it was probably the strangest and most unique bit of SF I read until I got old enough to buy my own books.
posted by tavella at 2:46 PM on February 5

This is a real loss to those of us who crave the very best literary science fiction. Very sad.

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posted by aught at 5:17 PM on February 5

Despite a lifetime of reading SF, I had somehow never read anything of his (I’ve seen The Prestige, but never took note of the fact that it was based on a novel). Because of the accolades I heard about him after his passing, I decided to remedy that gap in my reading history. I've just finished Inverted World and, wow. I’m so sorry he is no longer with us, but glad I have several decades worth of his writing to catch up on.

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posted by Rock Steady at 7:58 PM on February 8 [1 favorite]