baldanders described The Prestige as "both one of the best stories about stage magic I've ever read and one of the best horror novels, period" when he was talking about it in conjunction with the film being made from it. All in all, I have to agree. What I found particularly interesting was the difference in the two main characters and how the way they presented their narrative reflected that difference. The one fellow declaims about the mystery of magic, how one must devote one's life to a secret -- and the reader can figure out fairly quickly what this secret of his must be. The magic there is all slight of hand, much as he says all magic is. What I didn't realize was that by putting his narrative first in the book, Priest was preparing the reader for the bigger secret, the bigger magic, made all the more so because the character describing it does not bother to keep it hidden -- he just never gets around to saying directly what's going on, and that makes it a thousand times more mysterious -- magical -- and, in the end, horrific -- than the other narrative. At the same time, I think I need to reread the book a couple more times for it to really sink in, "it" being: children; debt; secrets; showmanship (?); omissions vs. lies; magic vs. science (Clarke's law?); death; and eternity.