- Hardcover: 400 pages
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd (3 Aug 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0684816326
- ISBN-13: 978-0684816326
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.5 x 4.1 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,102,687 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Extremes (GollanczF.)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Dunblane, Port Arthur and Hungerford will be places known to many of us because of the apparently random mass shootings that have happened there in recent years. The Extremes is a book about such violence--it's horror, the sheer bad luck of being its victim, and the anguish it causes to those left behind. It is also a book about virtual reality, and is set in a not-so-distant future in which events of violence can be experienced by anyone prepared (or able) to pay for the privilege.
After her husband has been violently killed in the U.S., Teresa Simons returns to the land of her birth and visits Bulverton, a (fictional) town on the south coast of England which has recently been torn apart by a massacre. She discovers that the ExEx or Extreme Experience virtual reality equipment she used as an FBI trainee has become public "entertainment" put together from people's memories of specific events by vast international companies (and also by shareware programmers). As she becomes embroiled in researching past events in Bulverton, virtual and true realities intertwine with disturbing outcomes.
Priest writes a good yarn, marrying fantasy and horrific reality in a gripping and suspenseful tale. --Sandra Vogel
Product Description
After her husband is killed, Teresa joins a virtual reality company, where she finds relief from her grief in other worlds and personalities. Then she enters the mind of Gerry Grove, the town's assassin. As she explores Grove's virtual existence, Teresa is terrified by what she discovers.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Extremes (Paperback)
I have never been disappointed in a Christopher Priest novel. Why isn't he more famous? Why hasn't he ever been on the Booker Prize shortlist? This is a wonderful novel about the nature of reality and the causes and effects of violence. It is gripping and superbly written. I actually preferred it to "The prestige". I recommend checking out all his books. (Check out the rave reviews of the hardback version, which annoyingly Amazon don't list under the paperback version.)
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Extremes - reality finally catches up with Chris Priest,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Extremes (Hardcover)
Christopher Priest has written several novels where the normal, typical world we live in is changed almost unrecognizably in a subtle manner. In The Extremes, Priest has somehow homed-in on some of the most disturbing issues in the Western World today; the increasing number of spree killings, the remorseless unchecked popularity of the Web, and the introduction of virtual reality technology. These subjects, wrapped-up together, make The Extremes a fascinating book to work through, leaving the reader with many questions to ask, which Priest deliberately leaves the reader to resolve him/herself.I read The Extremes the same week of the Denver shootings. If the modern world and modern morality seem a bit weird to you these days, then The Extremes will confirm you aren't the only one concerned with the way the world is going.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A haunting, brilliant novel,
By
This review is from: The Extremes (Paperback)
The Extremes deals with the emotional aftermath of a Hungerford-style mass killing spree and the curious linkage that seems to exist between it and a similar atrocity in the USA. While the story of a bereaved American widow searching for some kind of closure in a dismal British town is affecting, what transforms The Extremes into something much more exotic is Priest's additional science fiction element of virtual reality to blur the boundaries between fantasy and reality. While Priest's depiction of his world is unconvincing in logical terms (on the one hand Bulverton is painted as a decaying resort town, yet for some reason has a popular state of the art virtual reality centre nearby), it makes for a fantastic dreamlike climax where the nature of reality itself is unsure, particularly when the novel starts breaking down into a fractal pattern, as characters already within virtual reality then enter other virtual realities within. Anyone looking for a standard thriller with a standard final explanation will be disappointed - but anyone looking for a bizarre dreamlike science fiction novel where the technology is of less importance than the characters and prose will love it.
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