Briardene’s next book, The Recollections: Fragments from a Life in Writing by Christopher Priest will be published on Thursday 2 April! You can pre-order it now, or at least go and have a look at the nice things some early readers have said about it.
Two points to note before anything else: first, we have a new shop interface, and there have been a few reports of confirmation emails going to spam, so if you don’t receive a confirmation of your order, please let us know at briardenebooks at gmail; and second, if you are attending this year’s Eastercon, Iridescence, there is an option at check-out to collect your copy there (and thus avoid postage).
Now to the book itself.
Christopher Priest, I expect, needs little introduction to most of the people reading this page. Over a long career, his novels, including The Separation, The Affirmation, Inverted World, The Islanders and many others won a panoply of awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the World Fantasy Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the British Science Fiction Association Award, the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire. His novel The Prestige was, of course, adapted into the Oscar-nominated film of the same title, directed by Christopher Nolan. And he died in 2024, at the age of 80.
The Recollections brings together essays and talks by Priest about his life as a writer and a reader. As such, it is a slight departure from previous Briardene Books: although you will certainly find thoughts about science fiction within it, it is not a collection of critical work per se. Nina Allan, who provides the Foreword, sums it up thus:
“Chris’s own subtitle for the book, Fragments from a Life in Writing, makes for a perfect description of what it is about. The pieces are arranged not according to when they were written but according to how they fit into the chronology of his writing life. Here you will find essays on many of the key enthusiasms that surfaced again and again in Chris’s writing: stage magic, H.G. Wells, World War II. And science fiction, of course, there’s plenty about that”
Previously unpublished essays include “The New Wave 1964-1968”, in which Priest reflects on his experiences during a tumultuous creative time for science fiction and “Looking for Mr Raphael”, recounting an experience of young love on a family holiday, as well as four Guest of Honour speeches that chart his relationship with science fiction at different times in his career. The Recollections also reprints the long essay “The Magic”, describing Priest’s perspective on the filming of The Prestige. It makes for a fascinating portrait that added dimensions to my understanding of Priest, and I am deeply honoured that Nina Allan entrusted it to Briardene.
The Recollections will be launched during this year’s Eastercon, and there will be some form of event during the convention to mark the occasion (details TBC). But that’s not all! At the time of his death, Priest was working on a biography of J.G. Ballard, which Nina has subsequently finished: it is called The Illuminated Man and it is also coming out in April, from Bloomsbury. Off the back of this, there will be an event at Waterstones Argyle Street in Glasgow celebrating the publication of both books, and Priest’s life and work. It should be a great evening, and I hope to see some of the people reading this there.
(As a final note: one of the advance blurbs for The Recollections was provided by Paul Kincaid, who literally wrote the (a) book on Priest. Kincaid is also, you may recall, the author of Colourfields: Writing About Writing About Science Fiction, which Briardene published last year, and I would be remiss as a publisher if I didn’t sneak in a reminder here that nominations are currently open for the BSFA, Locus and Hugo Awards, and he and I would be delighted if you would consider it in the appropriate categories.)
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