Denver Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club

This is so skillfully and cleverly written that I really wanted to like it more than I did.  The many ironic twists and nested iterations on the theme of dual personalities are most impressive.  I think Priest made the right choice not trying to conceal Alfred Borden's nature too long, instead focusing on Borden's fascinating psychology.

(Trying too hard to keep Borden's secret was one of several regrettable changes the filmmakers made in adapting The Prestige to the screen.  The most obvious error was altering the nature of the Tesla machine.  With the movie's nonlethal version, Angier could have merely used the device once and thereafter pulled off his magic trick the same way Borden did it.  But the film version is fairly good nonetheless.)

I found Rupert Angier a much less compelling character than Borden, and unfortunately his was a longer section of the novel.  Because I wasn't terribly interested in Angier's psychology, and because both Angier and Borden struck me as petty and unsympathetic, I found the second half of the novel a bit of a chore.  I had the same reaction to much of The Prestige that I have to magic shows: I recognize that the magician is skillful, but can't see much reason to care about his tricks.