peace fails or vice versa. Priest's writing is gripping, and it's one of those rare books that reveal what writing is: manner and matter twinned and entwined." Elizabeth Hand described the book as "exquisite ... an exceptionally frightening novel whose nightmare power derives from its chilling, almost clinical evocation of an historical reality with which we are all familiar, the London Blitz... a cliffhanger narrative of dual identities, betrayals, and shifting realities, as two versions of the twins' histories—and England's, and the world's—are woven together, like strands of DNA, to form a terrifying narrative. Priest has used doubles before to great effect, in his award-winning novel The Prestige; but The Separation trumps even that tale. Its chapters linger in the mind like scenes from a Hitchcock film, impossible to shake off; like Hitchcock's work, The Separation begs for repeated readings to appreciate the cold brilliance and execution of its intricate plot fully. A masterly novel that deserves to become a classic." Publishers Weekly called it a "subtle, unsettling alternative WWII history": "Convincingly detailed diaries, scraps of published texts, declassified transcripts and more baffle a historian who tries to reconcile different realities. The brothers themselves recognize the uncertainty of motives and actions; Joe in particular struggles to believe that he's making a better future even though he realizes how much it costs him personally. Many alternative history novels are bloodless extrapolations from mountains of data, but this one quietly builds characters you care about—then leaves their dilemmas unresolved as they try to believe that what they have done is 'right'." Pauline Morgan, reviewing the novel for SF Crowsnest.com, said, "This is a glorious book to read—not for nothing was Christopher Priest included in the line-up of Britain's best young novelists some years ago. The Separation does what so few books do these days, whatever genre they are written in; it encourages the reader to think." Awards The Separation won the 2002 BSFA Award and the 2003 Arthur C. Clarke Award. It was a finalist for the 2002 Sidewise Award for best long-form alternate history, and the 2003 John W. Campbell Memorial Award. The French translation won the 2006 Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire for best novel in translation. References External links Christopher Priest's Website Singling out the duplications in The Separation an essay by Paul Kincaid The scars of war: Christopher Priest looks behind the course of history for inspiration Guardian Unlimited