The Islanders

In the late-70s, Christopher Priest wrote a series of stories about the Dream Archipelago, a string of islands that represent neutral territory for the warring nations of the northern continent. The islands became a place of sexual allure and menace, culminating in what many consider his finest novel, The Affirmation (1980), in which the allure of the islands undermines a sense of identity. Nearly 30 years later, he returned to the Dream Archipelago with stories in which the combination of allure and menace has taken on an even darker tone. The Islanders, which won both the John W. Campbell Memorial Award and the BSFA Award, presents the reimagined Dream Archipelago in a very intriguing way. It is structured as a gazetteer of the islands, presenting them alphabetically, telling us about their flora and fauna, their currency and tourist attractions and their particular laws. But in among all this information bits of stories start to appear. As we piece them together we discover a curious death that may be accidental or may be murder, we learn of horrors and of forbidden islands, we meet sexual predators and people who appear to be alive long after their supposed death. It takes more than one reading to uncover all the clues and twists of this narrative, but it is well worth the effort. Why it's on the list: Priest has spent his entire career never repeating himself, always taking science fiction in unexpected and rewarding new directions. His work this century has been particularly fruitful in that respect, with a stunning reinvention of the alternate history novel in The Separation (2002) which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and The Adjacent (2013) which seems to tie all his previous work into a completely unexpected new knot. But it is The Islanders that really displays his invention better than anything else. You haven't read anything like this novel before.