The Prestige by Christopher Priest (originally published in 1995)

Reviewed for Dragonmount by Michael

When Tor approached Dragonmount and asked if anyone would be available to read and review The Prestige by Christopher Priest, I jumped at the chance. Well, after my mind went through the inevitable jumps of “wait, like the movie?” and “ok, but that book came out in 1995!” Those are all correct thoughts: the Christopher Nolan film starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman is based upon this book, which was released in 1995. But Tor is re-releasing the book as part of the Tor Essentials collection, and if that is not good enough reason to revisit it, the fact that Christopher Priest passed away in 2024 is.

Despite having seen the movie two or three times, I had not read the book before (a reversal of the order I usually prefer to do things). As soon as I had the advance copy in my hands and started reading, I understood why Christopher Nolan had been drawn to this story. The text plays with timing and narrative in the same way that has become a hallmark of Nolan’s films, but with varied elements that are available in the written vs. the visual form. At times, I was stylistically reminded of the way Grey Men are handled in the Wheel of Time—right there on the page, but hidden in plain sight until their presence is revealed and you can revisit that paragraph with knowing eyes.

The Prestige is divided into five parts, told from the first-person perspective of four different characters: the two magicians, Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier; two modern-day (or at least, modern as of 1995) descendents of those men, Andrew Wesley (Borden) and Kate Angiers; and, finally, a brief look at the title character.

Each perspective is written in a different voice and style, to great effect. The modern contemporaries are presented as a standard first person narratives, as those characters work together to try to understand the overlapping family histories and the dramatic obsession that existed between their great-grandfathers. The accounts of the magicians are as written journals, Borden’s as an adult journal of his work and Angier’s as a diary (begun on his ninth birthday) of his life. Neither are entirely reliable narrators, for reasons that will become more clear upon finishing the book.

Beginning as a sort of mystery and becoming a tale of obsession and competition with tragic results, The Prestige ends as a horror. Indeed, the final lines of The Prestige strongly evoke the final lines of another Victorian science-fiction horror: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I found the slow build toward both science-fiction and horror to be highly effective. At the beginning, we are with a modern human, with cell phones and CDs, and with a casual interest in understanding more about his family history. As we learn about the lives of the two magicians, we begin to appreciate the terrible toll that their obsessions—with magic, with each other, with revenge—takes on themselves and their families. By the end, the sins of the past have manifested in the present, and the truly sinister nature of The Prestige is revealed.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Because the film adaptation was successful, I suspect that I may not be alone in having come to this book having some idea of the plot and foreknowledge of the surprising twists. While the plot is more or less the same, and those twists are still present, the treatment and the nuances of the book The Prestige are significantly different. 

I do not need to unpack every difference, but there are a few elements of the book that I especially want to make note of, and in many cases these are also instances that diverge from the film. The double life of Borden is handled superbly, as even the character never explicitly admits to the existence of an identical twin. Both contribute to “his” journal as the same person, and only occasionally reference “The Pact” which prevents them from sharing particular details. Only after Angiers discovers their secret, after our time with Borden’s journal has ended, do the final pieces of how his Transported Man illusion is able to work, and why his personal life was conflicted, as if between two personalities.

Likewise, Angier is equally cagey about the specifics of his Transported Man. He alludes only vaguely to the unpleasantness of dealing with “the prestige materials” that are generated by his use of the apparatus designed by Tesla. It is left to the descendents of the magicians to truly uncover and understand the terrible price that Angier paid for his magic trick. 

It is the connection to modern times that produces the most horrifying effect. The movie ends tragically with the deaths of one and a half of the rival magicians, but with a final happy ending scene of “Alfred Borden” being reunited with his daughter and (as per Christopher Nolan’s usual) Michael Caine looking on approvingly. The book ends rather differently, and with a much more menacing emphasis on the title.

Ultimately, I highly recommend reading The Prestige by Christopher Priest. Fans of the film will find plenty new and different to appreciate here, and if you have not seen the movie, I am truly jealous that you may get to experience the twists and turns of this story from the page for the first time.

And, anyone who has ever driven to Denver by way of Iowa and Nebraska will find some relatably amusing lines on page 232 of this new Tor Essentials edition! Thank you, as always, to Tor Publishing for the advance access to this book.