João Barreiros

Our schools unfortunately actively teach children to look down on SF (and other genres). At age 30, faced with writing a critical review of a novel of my choice, “Terrarium”, I was told quite unambiguously by my Portuguese teacher that I would be marked down for choosing a SF work, no matter how good it was and no matter how well I wrote about it. When society teaches children en masse to routinely devalue an entire genre, it is little wonder that people who read that genre feel they are being sniffed at. “Lord of the Flies” (which is crap), as far as I know, has never been classified as science fiction. No H.G. Wells on the curriculum (AFAIK). You might get the odd exceptional title, like “Brave New World”, but as I mentioned elsewhere these have often been transplanted into the category of literary fiction, at least in the minds of the teachers and examiners.

I've never regarded SF and literary fiction as mutually exclusive, more of a Venn diagram. Indeed, the same could be said of other genres.

SF is an odd genre. Mostly because it could include so many other genres.

I think I understand what some people is saying, the science isn't important to them rather the narrative. People are getting unnecessarily sensitive because they enjoy SF. I wouldn't pay too much attention to the snobbism because it's never been all encompassing. There have long been SF writers who were Respectable, from Mary Shelley (sort of) to HG Wells (indisputably).

I'd also claim Jonathan Swift is arguably a close cousin to SF. And going even further back, Greek legends has SF with the various monstrous mechanisms constructed in those tales. Maybe I'm exaggerating. I'm risking saying everything is SF.

Anyway, what I meant to say was the snobbism towards SF is not only jealousy, it's also that most SF, like most books in fact, is pretty rubbish. Not because it is SF, but because it's no good.

Because there is plenty of SF around which is praised to the skies, including incidentally Ursula Le Guin who is firmly in the pantheon of great writers of the last century.

Hence I think there's no need to defend sci-fi from snobbism, and in fact better to remember most books are not up to much. Most authors are the victims of snobbery if you want to call it that because what they do isn't generally good enough to stand out.

(my Caminho edition bought in 1998)

And incidentally, SF is great. Starting with PKD obviously, as far as I'm concerned.

But it's not a rebrand. It is at least as old as the horrible 'sci fi', and the magazines and publishing houses producing science fiction with literary merit for the last 50-odd years have used SF. The term SF has come back when superhero movies got big and ignorant people think it is all basically the same thing. But I wouldn't expect publishing houses or authors to be ignorant, so I'd assume if they were marketing a book as SF they meant 'movie tie-in' and avoid it.

Having read this for the first time in the 90s, this re-read in 2022 was still top-notch. A few notes this time around:

- Roy Baker, for having seemed the most consistent (and the most interesting story of the bunch);

- Clara de Sousa and Joel have some problems in their narrative construction and in their individual voices;

- Todd's side story, being fascinating in his simulacrum construction almost in the style of PKD, turns out to be too lateral;

- But the world-building is still fantastic! From cyberpunk to space opera, from the simulacra a la Phil Dick, and post-apocalyptic undertones makes this a very peculiar novel. I’ve read very few Anglo-Saxon SF books with more ambition, scope and detail in the world they created. It's the Portuguese “Hyperion” but much, much better. And whoever says Portuguese SF does not have quality, is because that person has never read or bought it;

- 5 stars in the 90s, 4 stars this time round.

NB: This novel was never translated into English as far as I know.

SF = Speculative Fiction.… (plus d'informations)

Até há bem pouco tempo conhecia mais do senhor Barreiros como pessoa do que como autor, o que pode levar a entender que conheço bem o senhor Barreiros. Não. Simplesmente, conheci a pessoa antes de conhecer a obra. Esta situação é de frisar pelo seguinte: o senhor Barreiros é um sujeito divertido, com um humor afiado, por vezes maldoso (mas nunca malvado) e com um olhar sempre crítico(1).

Essas características são encontradas com facilidade nos vários contos que constituem este livro. Não gostei de todos por igual, porém em todos eles encontrei sempre algo de que gostei. Sei que estou a ser muito vago nesta minha apreciação. Sou o primeiro a querer escrever algo mais específico, mas acabei de ler o livro nem há cinco minutos. Estou a fazer esta entrada com a cabeça ainda 'quente'.

O que eu posso fazer por agora - não prometendo uma apreciação mais detalhada num futuro próximo para não correr o risco de quebrar a promessa - é garantir que estas oito histórias estão bem escritas, bem imaginadas, e estão carregadinhas de tudo aquilo que já disse em (1) [deu jeito a nota, não deu?]. Portanto, arrisquem.… (plus d'informations)