The Gradual

Set in Priest's Dream Archipelago world, this novel promises much but doesn't fully deliver

As a child, the main character watches his brother be sent off to never-ending war, from which he never returns. The child grows up to be a highly-esteemed composer of music which is inspired by the islands he can see at a distance in the ocean--but he never forgets about his brother. Offered the chance to do a traveling performance tour with a group of other musicians, he takes it, with the hope of finding clues to his brother's whereabouts. But he does not know about The Gradual, the strange time-twisting effect experienced by people who travel among the islands.

Set in Priest's Dream Archipelago world, this novel promises much but doesn't fully deliver. Like The Adjacent, it is a fantasy pretending to be science-fictional, without bothering to do any of the worldbuilding which would make the science-fictional part believable. Several interesting subthreads are introduced and later completely dropped, without any further development or resolution. I think I'm done with Priest's books at this point, as I go into them hoping to love the story based on the jacket copy, but end up disappointed.