Story: 2 / 10
Characters: 5
Setting: 7
Prose: 7

Hardly scifi at all. Really depends on the reader's interpretation. I would remove it from the SF Masterworks collection.
Essentially a theme-based book exploring self, memory, and perception, but not a lot happens. Would not recommend for anyone. ( )

I have not rated this book, because I do not know what to rate this book. I do not know what to rate this book because I'm not entirely sure if I understood it, and if I don't understand it then I can hardly judge it.
It's either incredibly flawed and slap-in-the-face pretentious, or it's bloody flipping clever. Either way, I wouldn't give it any more than 4 or any less than 3. I enjoyed it, I was gripped; it was an experience, and I'm a little sad not to have someone else to talk about it with who has also read it.

Would I recommend it? That would depend. If you like ideas, then yes. It's brimming with ideas. It's quite wellsian in prose, but there isn't much depth to the characters. Despite this, and it's slow pace, it does keep you turning the pages.

This is my 3rd Priest novel and I feel like I have a good grasp on his style now, though I don't know if I like him as an author. I loved The Prestige, though once again, it's not a massively enjoyable read until the pay off at the end. I liked Inverted World very much, but the ending was way too Deus Ex Machina. This I enjoyed but I haven't quite made my mind up on it yet. Maybe one day I'll reread it. I'll almost certainly be reading more of priest, since there seems to be something captivating in his stories and ideas regardless of whether they end well or not.

This is a fantastic book that should be more widely read. It has the best qualities of the best magical realists (Garcia Marquez, Murakami) while being thoroughly mysterious and entrancing.

The story is very meta and the timeline jumps around a bit, like in "Fugue for a Darkening Island" (so far, the only 2 Priest books I've read, to my shame). It involves a man writing a book trying to make sense of his life, but ending up writing a different story that may or may not be allegorical but which definitely has echoes on the real story that you can glimpse in between the "fictional" and the "allegedly true".

I don't think this is a book for everyone though. It's not that it's complex or uses a style that's hard to follow or grasp. It has more to do with the mood of the story. It's pretty melancholic, as its main subjects are regret and the nature of memory. There's a promise somewhere in there of getting a new lease on life, through a procedure that may or may not erase your personality. It's something that echoes (in reverse, since this book is older) a movie like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", though here there's not a machine but a lottery that takes you on a cruise through an archipelago that somehow promises the protagonist a new, unburdened life. This premise is enticing and, though it's not really resolved, it's enough to make the reader wonder.

As a writer, there are so many good techniques used herein that it makes for a great read. The ending alone is superb and very few writers could accomplish it without letting the reader down.

Definitely a must read for any serious book lover. ( )

El joven Peter Sinclair se retira a una casa de campo. Acaba de perderlo casi todo: su padre, su novia, el trabajo y la vivienda. Su único recurso para recuperar el equilibrio es la escritura, así que emprende la redacción de una autobiografía. La historia de su vida irá adornándose y cobrando autonomía hasta descubrirse el protagonista cautivo de su propia ficción, náufrago entre dos identidades paralelas y excluyentes.

It reminded me a lot of 'Inception,' in a very good way. It's filled with a sense of melancholy that forced me to empathize with a character it was a little disturbing to empathize with. It refused to answer the questions I wanted to know - and helped me get used to the idea of not know what was real and what is misremembered. ( )