The Islanders

Christopher Priest

Gollancz 2011, hb, 339pp, £12.99,ISBN 9780575070042

Bricks

Leon Jenner

Coronet 2011, hb, 136pp, £12.99,ISBN 9781444706284

Wither

Lauren DeStefano

HarperVoyager 2011, pb, 358pp, £9.99,ISBN 9780007425471

Manhattan in Reverse

Peter F Hamilton

Macmillan 2011, hb, 260pp, £17.99,ISBN 9780230750302

Blackout

Connie Willis

Gollancz 2011, pb, 610pp, £14.99,9780099272

The Islanders Christopher Priest is probablybest known as the author of The Prestige, on which the 2006 film was based. But for SF readers he hasbeen one of the most consistently reliable, thoughtful and thought-provokingBritish writers of the last 40 years, right from his earliest novels Indoctrinaire,Fugue for a Darkening Island, Inverted World and A Dream of Wessex (1970-77). He specialises in uncertainty, both in what actually happens (ornot) in his stories and in the unreliability of his narrators.