Introducing the first in a new series I’m calling: Here’s a Book I Haven’t Bought Yet and am Loathe to Publicize Lest You Take the Copy I Wanted but It is Too Good to Keep to Myself and Anyhow I Guess I Could Just Order Another One So Go Ahead. 

Good name. Very Catchy.

First up, this year’s BSFA winner, Christopher Priest’s The Islanders. The book’s publicity copy compares Priest to Murakami and David Mitchell, and that is somewhat apt, but Priest has always come at his strange material from the genre side of the aisle. He’s a gorgeous writer, an able hand with absence and the chiaroscuro of Keatsean negative capability, but knows the history of fantastic worldbuilding and so is deft at avoiding cliche. He’s a marvel. You should read this one before I do.