The Recollections: Fragments From A Life In Writing by Christopher Priest (book review)
Christopher Priest died at 80 in 2024. This is a collection of his non-fiction pieces, assembled and introduced by his third wife, novelist Nina Allan. If, like me, you’ve enjoyed his novels and shorter fiction, mostly published as SF, though far removed from typical SF, you’ll love this volume. He wrote almost twenty novels, depending on whether you count his film tie-in stuff written for the money.
In large part, the contents here are autobiographical. There are four Guest-of-Honour speeches from conventions, demonstrating Priest’s great wit. While his novels are often serious and dour, he had a great sense of humour, which is on show throughout this volume. The longest piece, almost a hundred pages, explains the writing and filming of his best-known novel, ‘The Prestige’. While he thought highly of the film and of the work of the Nolan brothers in scripting and filming it, he accepts that the film and the novel are very different in many respects. Some of the details of how the movie industry operates, especially in this case, are truly astonishing. For example, for secrecy reasons, no film stills were available for use on a special reprint of the novel to tie in with the film’s release.
Most notable among these pieces are Priest’s strong criticisms of particular people, always with good reasons, clearly and persuasively expressed. Lester del Rey is torn apart both for his own fiction and for his advocacy of how wonderful and important the early SF was in 1926 et seq. For Anne McCaffrey, it’s her writing style, for Larry Niven it’s for a convention speech of ‘mind-numbing tediousness’. He also heavily criticises a few editors and publishers, whose names I didn’t know, so I won’t mention them.
Does he have good things to say about anyone? Yes: high quality writers, including H.G. Wells, Richard Cowper (under several names) and friends including Charles Platt. Michael Moorcock is mentioned a few times, coming in for criticism and praise. John Fowles is heavily praised for his novel ‘The Magus’.
Priest has much to say about the ‘New Wave’ of mainly British SF or not SF writers in the mid-1960s and about the creation of The Best Of Young British Novelists in 1983 in which he was included. The Lord Snowdon photo for which they were all lined up, is one of the most hilarious parts of this book.
I found it sad to learn that, having made up his mind to be a writer very early in his teens, Priest was short of money for half his writing life, due to small advances being offered for his novels, firms paying him late and his work being high-quality rather than best-selling. Priest answers many questions about his life and work here, such as why so many of his book-titles begin ‘The’.
So, if you care at all about the late Christopher Priest or fine fiction writing or what SF really is, buy this marvellous collection, educational and great fun to read.
Chris Morgan
June 2026
(pub: Briardene Books, 2026. 331page paperback. Price: £15.00 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-7385617-4-2)
check out website: https://briardenebooks.uk/2026/04/02/the-recollections-is-published/