Christopher Priest

The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is literature, creative and professional writing and science fiction novel. Ballard and H. Wells are recorded as an influence. Works named in the authority record are The Inverted World, The Affirmation, The Prestige, The Separation and The Islanders. Distinctions recorded are James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire for Best Foreign-Language Short Story, Bob Morane award for best foreign novel and Arthur C.

• Name — Christopher Priest • Pen Name — John Luther Novak, Colin Wedgelock • Born — 14 July 1943 • Birthplace — Cheadle, Cheshire, England • Died — 2 February 2024 • Occupation — Writer, novelist • Period — 1966–2024 • Genre — Fantasy, horror, science fiction, slipstream • Notable Works — * The Inverted World • The Space Machine • The Affirmation • The Glamour • The Prestige • The Separation • The Islanders • Children — 2 • Awards — See below • Website — christopher-priest.co.uk

Christopher Mackenzie Priest was born on 14 July 1943 in Cheadle, Cheshire, England. During his childhood he spent holidays in Dorset, where he explored the ancient hillfort of Maiden Castle near Dorchester, an experience that made a lasting impression on him and would later use as the location for the novel A Dream of Wessex (1977). Priest was educated at Cheadle Hulme School and left at the age of sixteen, after which he worked as an accountancy clerk and audit clerk. He also held positions at a greeting card company and a mail order book publisher before committing fully to writing. Soon after leaving school he began writing, and in 1968 he gave up clerical employment to devote himself fully to a career as a freelance writer. His first published story, "The Run," appeared in Impulse magazine in May 1966. Beyond his fiction writing, Priest was deeply involved in the science fiction community. He was active in fanzines and fandom from 1964, serving as associate editor of Foundation magazine from 1974 to 1977. He also lectured on science fiction and writing at The University of London and at Deakin University in Australia. In 1983, he was named as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists, cementing his reputation as a significant literary voice. Priest's personal life was marked by several marriages and relocations. In 1969 he married Christine Merchant, with whom he moved to London; the marriage ended after four years. In 1981 he married the American writer Lisa Tuttle, from whom he divorced in 1987. The following year he married the science fiction writer Leigh Kennedy; the couple had twins, Elizabeth and Simon, before their marriage ended in 2011. That same year Priest began a relationship with the writer Nina Allan. They lived together from then on and were married in 2023. Throughout his career, Priest lived in various locations that influenced his work. He resided in Devon and later on the Isle of Bute, locations that may have contributed to his fascination with islands and isolated landscapes that feature prominently in his Dream Archipelago series. His work was characterized by psychological complexity and an exploration of identity, memory, and reality that set him apart from conventional genre fiction. Christopher Priest died on 2 February 2024, at the age of eighty. At the time of his death, he had nearly completed a nonfiction study of J.G. Ballard, having written 70,000 words of what would have been a comprehensive examination of the author who had significantly influenced his own work.

Priest's first story, "The Run", was published in 1966. Formerly an accountant and audit clerk, he became a full-time writer in 1968. One of his early novels, The Affirmation, concerns a traumatized man who apparently flips into a delusional world in which he experiences a lengthy voyage to an archipelago of exotic islands. This setting played a part in many of Priest's short stories, which raises the question of whether the Dream Archipelago is actually a fantasy. The state of mind depicted in this novel is similar to that of the delusional fantasy-prone psychoanalytic patient ("Kirk Allen") in Robert Lindner's The Fifty-Minute Hour, or Jack London's tortured prisoner in The Star Rover. Priest also dealt with delusional alternate realities in A Dream of Wessex, in which a group of experimenters for a British government project are brain-wired to a hypnosis machine and jointly participate in an imaginary but as-real-as-real future in a vacation island off the coast of a Sovietized Britain. His later novels include The Islanders (2011), set in the Dream Archipelago, and The Adjacent (2013), a multi-strand narrative with recurring characters. Of his narrative's plot twists, Priest told an interviewer in 1995, "my shocks are based on a sudden devastating reversal of what the reader knows or believes."

Priest wrote the tie-in novel to accompany the 1999 David Cronenberg movie eXistenZ, which contains themes of the novels A Dream of Wessex and The Extremes. Such themes include the question of the extent to which we can trust what we believe to be reality and our memories. Priest was approached to write stories for the 18th and 19th seasons of Doctor Who. The first, "Sealed Orders", was a political thriller based on Gallifrey commissioned by script editor Douglas Adams; it was eventually abandoned due to script problems and replaced with "Warriors' Gate". The second, "The Enemy Within", was also eventually abandoned due to script problems and what Priest perceived as insulting treatment after he was asked to modify the script to include the death of Adric. It was replaced by "Earthshock". Priest received payment while Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner and script editor Eric Saward were forced to pen a letter of apology for the treatment of the writer. A film of his novel The Prestige was released on 20 October 2006. It was directed by Christopher Nolan and starred Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman. Despite differences between the novel and screenplay, Nolan was reportedly so concerned the denouement be kept a surprise that the US publisher's tie-in edition of the book was blocked from using any images from the film itself.

Priest is known to have used the pseudonyms John Luther Novak and Colin Wedgelock, usually for movie novelisations, and Donald MacKenzie. As well as the eXistenZ novelization (which undermined the pseudonym by including Priest's biography on the pre-title page), he has novelised the movies Mona Lisa (as John Luther Novak) and Short Circuit (as Colin Wedgelock). Priest co-operated with fellow British science fiction author David Langford on various enterprises under the Ansible brand.

Priest wrote for The Guardian from 2002, largely obituaries of such figures as Robert Sheckley, Stanislaw Lem, Jack Williamson, Diana Wynne Jones, John Christopher and many more.

Priest lived in Devon, and later on the Isle of Bute. He was married to writer Lisa Tuttle from 1981 to 1987, and from 1988 to 2011 to Leigh Kennedy, with whom he had twins. He later lived with speculative fiction writer Nina Allan until his death, by which time Allan had become his wife. Priest died from small-cell carcinoma on 2 February 2024, at the age of 80.

• Indoctrinaire. London: Faber and Faber, 1970. • Fugue for a Darkening Island. London: Faber and Faber, 1972. Campbell nominee, 1973. • The Inverted World. London: Faber and Faber, 1974. BSFA winner, 1974, Hugo Award nominee, 1975. • The Space Machine. London: Faber and Faber, 1976. • A Dream of Wessex (US title The Perfect Lover). London: Faber and Faber, 1977. • The Affirmation. London: Faber and Faber, 1981. BSFA nominee, 1981. • The Glamour. London: Jonathan Cape, 1984. BSFA nominee, 1984. • Short Circuit. Sphere Books, 1986. (Film tie-in novelisation as Colin Wedgelock) • Mona Lisa. Sphere Books, 1986. (Film tie-in novelisation as John Luther Novak) • The Quiet Woman. London: Bloomsbury, 1990. • The Prestige. London: Simon and Schuster, 1995. BSFA nominee, 1995; World Fantasy Award winner, James Tait Black Memorial Prize winner, Clarke Awards nominee, 1996. • The Extremes. London: Simon and Schuster, 1998. BSFA winner, 1998; Clarke Award nominee, 1999. • eXistenZ. Harper, 1999. (Film tie-in novelisation) • The Separation. Scribner, 2002. Old Earth Books 2005—BSFA winner, 2002; Clarke Award winner, Campbell Award nominee, Sidewise Award nominee, 2003. • The Islanders. Gollancz, 2011. BSFA winner, 2011; Campbell Award winner, 2012. • The Adjacent. Gollancz, 20 June 2013. • The Gradual. Gollancz, 2016. • An American Story. Gollancz, 2018. • The Evidence. Gollancz, 2020. • Expect Me Tomorrow. Gollancz, 2022. • Airside. Gollancz, 2023.

• Anticipations. Faber and Faber, 1978. • Watson, Ian. Indhold:The Very Slow Time Machine • Sheckley, Robert. Is That What People Do? • Shaw, Bob. Amphitheatre • Priest, Christopher. The Negation • Harrison, Harry. The Greening Of The Green • Disch, Thomas M.. Mutability • Ballard, J.G.. One Afternoon At Utah Beach • Aldiss, Brian W.. A Chinese Perspective

• The Stooge. 2010 or 2011.

• Your Book of Film-Making. London: Faber and Faber, 1974. • The Making of the Lesbian Horse. Novacon 9 for the Birmingham Science Fiction Group, 1979. Priest attended as the Guest of Honour. • The Book on the Edge of Forever. Seattle: Fantagraphics, 1993. • "Christopher Priest's Top 10 Slipstream Books". 2003. An essay for London's The Guardian, listing ten seminal novels of the slipstream genre, including works by J. G. Ballard, Angela Carter, Borges, Steve Erickson, and Steven Millhauser. • "Foreword" to Stephen E. Andrews' and Nick Rennison's 100 Must-Read Science Fiction Novels. London: A&C Black Academic and Professional/Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006.. • The Magic – The Story of a Film. Hastings: GrimGrin Studio, 2008. • "La Jetée". Essay in Cinema Futura: Essays on Favourite Science Fiction Movies, edited by Mark Morris. PS Publishing, 2010..

• Real-time World. New English Library, 1974. Reissued by GrimGrin Studio 2008. • An Infinite Summer. Faber and Faber, 1979. Three stories reissued in The Dream Archipelago. • The Dream Archipelago. Earthlight, 1999. Reissued 2009. • Ersatz Wines – Instructive Short Stories GrimGrin Studio, 2008. Anthology of early works. • Episodes, Gollancz, 2019.