Real-time World: Amazon.co.uk: Christopher Priest: 9780955973529: Books

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.

Agree with these tags?

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

Customer Reviews

2 Reviews

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A scarce classic back in print, 7 Dec 2008

By

Stephen E. Andrews "Writer" (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Real-time World (Hardcover)

'Real-Time World' was the first collection of Chris Priest stories. It was issued in 1974 as a hardcover by NEL, followed by a paperback from the same firm and has been out of print for at least thirty years. Scarce even in paperback, it's a really rare book in hardback (every copy I've ever seen - and I've only seen a few after decades of collecting Priest -is in a hell of a state). Therefore, this hardcover reissue, which features all the original contents including the introduction plus a new updated essay from the author, is very welcome indeed.

These are the early Priest SF stories that made print in various magazines (the companion volume, 'Ersatz Wines', also from Grim Grin Studios, features mostly previously unpublished stories). Some are admittedly the work of a writer finding his voice and place in the world of late sixties-early seventies British New Wave SF, but most are important in allowing devotees an insight into the emergent career of one of Britain's most gifted and original writers. The eponymous story is an important one in the Priest canon, nodding a head as it does to future projects (inlcuding the novel "Inverted World"), but for me, the absolute stone cold New Wave classic in the book is CP's first published story, 'The Run', a gripping, blunt tale of a future Prime Minister's response to goading from unemployed, unemployable masses as a massive crisis looms on the horizon. Terse, ambiguous, with a character simultaneously unsympathetic and recognisably human, shot through with the ominous presence of impending nuclear doom, this is stunning stuff. There are, of course, other good stories in this book, but for my money, 'The Run' (which CP describes as 'pristine meldorama') is worth the price of admission alone, despite its 10-12 page length. In my opinion (and I wrote the book '100 Must Read Science Fiction Novels') it is one of the great 1960s British SF stories, even if it does not present the author's mature style. Just brilliant.

To sum up, if you are interested in classic British literary SF that sits alongside the work of Moorcock, M. John Harrison, Aldiss and Ballard from this period, then you must buy this book, as it is essential.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse | Permalink

Comment Comment

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Patchy, but there's gold in them thar hills., 5 April 2011

By

Jason Mills "jason10801" (Accrington, UK) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Real-Time World (Paperback)

This is a collection from 1974 of early SF stories. Some of them are mundane: "The Perihelion Man", for instance, is a one-man-against-the-Venusians tale that could have been written by any of a hundred hacks of the time. "Double Consummation" presents a rather clunky dystopia in which everyone lives a double life, mediated by a 'transition' drug, to increase consumption in a depopulated Britain; its concerns appear as dated as its solution does contrived.

On the other hand, the writer's voice is beginning to poke through the snow here and there. "The Head and the Hand" tells of a man who has made a stage career of self-mutilation, and is memorably repellent, placing the reader in the voyeur's seat. "A Woman Naked" presents a chillingly plausible form of 'justice' which hideously entrenches men's power over women, and which is nonetheless only a millimetre beyond how some Islamic societies treat them today.

But with the title story, which ends the collection, Priest's voice becomes not only interesting and compelling, but unique and instantly distinctive. The narrator (the first of this author's many untrustworthy narrators) lives on a mobile laboratory sent to an alien world, and acts as liaison between its staff and the mission controllers on Earth; except that, as it transpires, nothing in that summation can be depended upon. Verging on the metaphysical, it's a story about perception, solipsism and disconnection, and as such it prefigures Priest's novels, such as "Inverted World", "The Affirmation" and "The Separation".

There's enough good stuff here to make this required reading for a Priest fan.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse | Permalink

Comment Comment

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See both customer reviews...