Cheap The Prisoner (Book) (Thomas M. Disch) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Prisoner

Nice Change from the Ordinary Science Fiction
I thoroughly enjoyed Thomas M. Disch's book, "The Prisoner." Like some of the other reviewers, I watched many "The Prisoner" episodes on television several decades ago. As a youngster, I never understood the television series and I won't claim to understand this book, but I liked the show because it was a change from the "norm."

In a nutshell (pun intended), I enjoyed this book soley for its entertainment merit. I wasn't looking for something "new" that was not revealed in the television episodes. I was looking for a "story" and found one.

Do you want to buy this book? I would say "yes" if you are looking for a change of entertainment pace--regardless of the story itself and Note: you don't need to be familiar with the TV series to understand the story.

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Really Bad
Let me start off by saying I've never seen the TV show.

I've also never heard of Thomas Disch before. I stumbled across his name in a book review for a Margaret Atwood novel. I liked his writing style, and this book sounded interesting so I picked it up.

It's trash. The best thing I can say about it is it's not long, so the pain is over quickly.

Disch beats (and beats and beats) you over the head with his not-so-clever connection between No. 6's prison and the everyday lives we live in the modern age. Most of the time this is pointed at the not-so-original target of suburbia, but during an escape to London the novel turns its dull wit towards the almost as un-original urban business climate.

The author's writing style, which appealed to me in his review, is garbage in this story. An otherwise dull narrative section will be interrupted by abrupt and overdone imagery. The characters lack any sort of depth and don't seem at all real; No. 6 has decided to retire because it's what the character needs to start the story. The plot has what you could call twists, but it goes between them directly and orderly, as if the writer himself wanted to get rid of each one in turn to relieve the burden of having to write any further complications. The ending (revealing the uninteresting mystery of No. 1's identity) as noted in other reviews, is bizarre and seems completely out of place.

Leave it. I recommend this book to sadists and those who want a break from reading the dictionary.

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Very Disappointing
I bought a used copy of Disch's Prisoner novel because I greatly enjoyed Disch's nonfiction book on sf, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of, had never read his fiction, and also hungered for a new story about No. 6. This novel was a great disappointment. It seems to combine elements from several Prisoner TV episodes (like the dream visualization technique and the female doctor from A,B&C) to no great advantage. Apart from those elements, the story has no great premise or narrative drive, and even the conclusion was confusing. Disch may be a great prose stylist, but if he is elsewhere, he isn't here.