The Classic Horror Stories by H.P. Lovecraft

Mais um livro que requisitei no NetGalley, este porque nunca tinha lido H.P. Lovecraft. Já tinha intenção de me dedicar às suas histórias, até porque já li obras influenciadas por elas (é quase impossível escapar-lhe) e uma colecção das mais relevantes pareceu-me uma óptima forma de o fazer. Já noutras opiniões disse que o horror não é a minha praia, mas devo dizer que Lovecraft me surpreendeu pela positiva também nisso: as suas histórias são mais ao estilo "weird" do que propriamente horror, o que as tornou mais interessantes para mim.

Esta colecção começa por uma excelente introdução por Roger Luckhurst que contextualiza o leitor sem ser demasiado reveladora quanto às histórias que se seguem e termina com mais notas explicativas. A contribuição de Luckhurst é um dos pormenores que distingue esta de outras colecções de trabalhos de Lovecraft, dando-lhe uma componente quase académica mas longe de ser aborrecida. Há uma constante intenção de ajudar o leitor a perceber o texto como ele foi escrito. E nesse sentido - outro pormenor que distingue esta colecção - houve uma tentativa de reproduzir a obra o mais fielmente possível, tentando eliminar as alterações que foram feitas pelos diferentes editores que as publicaram inicialmente.

O livro inclui as seguintes histórias: The Horror at Red Hook, The Call of Cthulhu, The Colour out of Space, The Dunwich Horror, The Whisperer in Darkness, At the Mountains of Madness, The Dreams in the Witch House, The Shadow over Innsmouth e The Shadow out of Time. Há ainda um excerto do seu ensaio sobre o horror na literatura, Supernatural Horror in Literature.

Se a nível de interesse informativo e cultural, este foi dos livros mais importantes que li nos últimos tempos, a nível das histórias a minha opinião já não é tão homogénea. Por um lado, reconheço que Lovecraft é provavelmente o autor mais eficaz a criar um ambiente de estranheza e uma sensação de intrusão e imprevisibilidade que já li. Por outro lado, o exagero de adjectivos e a sua repetição - em especial de história para história - tornam-se frequentemente cansativos e prejudicam a leitura. A meu ver, o estilo funciona melhor em textos curtos e provavelmente lidos isoladamente, tal como foram publicados. Posto isto, percebe-se porque é que o que menos gostei foi At the Mountains of Madness, que embora seja dos seus trabalhos mais conhecidos é igualmente dos maiores e acabou por me aborrecer a meio da leitura.

H.P. Lovecraft concentra-se num tipo de medo diferente do habitual nas histórias mais tradicionais - de pendor religioso - ou mesmo nas actuais, que se concentram na sensação de encurralamento e de inimigos que se dissimulam no meio de nós. O medo das histórias de Lovecraft não se associa a nenhum castigo, a nenhuma culpa nem necessariamente a nada de humano. Vem do exterior, de fora da Terra, de fora da nossa "dimensão" até fora da nossa compreensão. Os seres que constituem o terror da obra de Lovecraft têm uma descrição quase inacreditável, tal é a estranheza do seu organismo. Há uma associação destes seres (com os quais Lovecraft criou toda uma estrutura interrelacionada que originou o que se chama mais tarde o Cthulhu Mythos) com cultos ou bruxaria, numa tentativa de aumentar a plausibilidade da história. As criaturas têm atitudes incompreensíveis, vivem ao longo de eras o que lhes dá uma visão distinta da sua própria existência e têm capacidades muito para além das nossas. O que é comum a todas as suas aparições é a sensação de estranheza da personagem narradora, como se o seu mundo estivesse a ser invadido por algo que não tem capacidade de entender e que, talvez por isso mesmo, o aterroriza imediatamente. Lovecraft transmite, mais do que medo, uma certa insanidade, através de um misto de dúvida e expectativa associadas a uma informação propositadamente pouco focada e sobre-adjectivada que deixa o leitor próximo da náusea.

Estas são histórias que presumem ultrapassados os medos medievais do moralismo religioso, da culpa própria, dos demónios que seduzem ou castigam, dos fiéis salvos e infiéis condenados e por isso se dedicam a explorar o medo de humanos que começam a questionar-se sobre a vida noutros planetas (e nas partes pouco exploradas do nosso), sobre a possibilidade de outras dimensões e da sua conexão com a nossa, sobre viagem no tempo, e de como podem haver outras criaturas com capacidades semelhantes ou superiores às nossas e intenções ininteligíveis que se cruzem connosco das formas mais imprevisíveis. Há, por outro lado, uma notória preocupação com a pureza racial e cultural que revela, para olhares atentos, o preconceito de que Lovecraft era abertamente apoiante e que pode diminuir o prazer da leitura.

Assim, recomendo esta colecção a quem ainda não tenha lido H.P. Lovecraft e tenha algum interesse em ficção especulativa e horror ou weird em especial, mas também a quem já tenha lido alguma história isolada ou traduzida e queira ler os trabalhos originais. Será também de especial utilidade a quem quiser conhecer o contexto do autor e da publicação de histórias cuja influência permeia muito do que se escreveu e escreve ainda hoje e não só na literatura de horror.

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"

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Another book from NetGalley, this one because I had never read H.P. Lovecraft. I had thought about it, of course, after reading works influenced by him (it's almost impossible not to) and a collection of his most relevant stories seemed like a great way to finally do it. I've previously mentioned here that I'm not a great fan of horror literature, but I must say that Lovecraft surprised me with stories more close to what we call weird than actual horror, which made this that much more interesting to me.

This collection starts with an excellent introduction by Roger Luckhurst that gives the reader some contextual information without spoiling too much and ends with some more explanatory notes. Luckhurst's contribution in one of the details that distinguish this from other Lovecraftian collections, giving it an almost academical component without ever being boring or over-thought. There is a real intention to help the reader understand the text as it was written. Towards that - another distinguishing detail - the works were reproduced as faithfully to the original writing as possible without the alterations made by the different editors that published them in the first place.

The book collects the following stories: The Horror at Red Hook, The Call of Cthulhu, The Colour out of Space, The Dunwich Horror, The Whisperer in Darkness, At the Mountains of Madness, The Dreams in the Witch House, The Shadow over Innsmouth and The Shadow out of Time.  The is also an excerpt from his essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature.

If when it comes to cultural interest, this was one of the most important books I've read recently, my thoughts on the stories themselves aren't always as positive. On on hand, I recognize that Lovecraft is, to my knowledge, probably the most effective author generating an ambience of weirdness and feelings of intrusion and unpredictability. On the other hand, the amount of adjectives and their repetition - specially in different stories - become overwhelming and tiresome. I feel his style works best in short stories and probably read separately, as they were published. Given all I've just said, it's easy to see why the one I enjoyed less was At the Mountains of Madness, which in spite of being one of his best known works is also one of the biggest and ended up boring me.

H.P.Lovecraft focuses on a kind of fear that differs from the usual in the more traditional, religiously biased stories or in the contemporary ones, that focus on feelings of entrapment and enemies hidden in plain sight. The fear in Lovecraft isn't associated with any punishment or guilt or even anything necessarily human. It comes from the outside, from space, from other dimensions, it's external to our comprehension. The terrifying beings in his works have a near incredible description, such is the weirdness of their organisms. There is an association between these creatures (with whom he created a whole interconnecting structure that came to be called the Cthulhu Mythos) and cults or witchcraft contributing to the plausibility of the stories. The creatures have incomprehensible behaviour, live through ages which gives them a different concept of existence and have abilities far beyond ours. Common to every one of their appearances is the feeling of weirdness they cause to the narrator, as if his world was being invaded by something he can't understand and that, perhaps precisely because of that, terrifies him immediately. Lovecraft transmits, more that fear, this feeling of near insanity, through a mix of doubt and expectation associated with blurred and over-adjectivized information that gets the reader almost to nausea.

These are stories that assume we've left behind those fears associated with religious morality, with guilt, seducing or punishing devils, saved pious or doomed non-believers and because of that are dedicated to the exploration of the fears of those who question alien life, outer-dimensional life, time travel or who consider the possibility of there being other creatures with abilities similar or superior to ours and whose intentions are unintelligible even when we come across them. There is, on the other hand, an obvious preoccupation with racial and cultural purity which shows, to those who are alert, a prejudice that Lovecraft was openly supportive of - something that can spoil the experience of reading his work.

As it is, I recommend this collection to those who haven't read H.P. Lovecraft and have any interest in speculative fiction and horror or weird in particular, but also to those who have read one or other isolated work and wishes to read the original and more memorable ones. It will also be useful to those who wish to understand the author's context, a man who came to influence so much of what has been written ever since, and not just in horror literature.

"Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread."

The Inner City by Karen Heuler

Mais um livro que tive oportunidade de ler através da NetGalley, desta feita uma aposta às cegas, dado que desconhecia a autora e a descrição era apenas indicativa de que estava prestes a ler ficção curta especulativa. A aposta foi, sem dúvida, ganha. Embora, como é inevitável nestas antologias, haja contos que goste mais e outros que goste menos, no computo geral a leitura foi interessante, com algumas ideias originais e uma abordagem diferente daquilo a que estou habituado.
Karen Heuler diz na sua página que escreve realismo mágico, instigada a isso pela leitura de Gabriel García Márquez, e de facto vejo a proximidade entre algumas das suas histórias e o pouco que li de Haruki Murakami, outro autor associado a este género literário. Apesar de tudo, não consigo escapar à impressão que isto não passa de mais um filho da ficção especulativa, do fantástico, com um isolamento da fantasia ou ficção científica e uma aproximação à chamada ficção literária provavelmente mais por motivos comerciais do que pelas características intrínsecas da obra.
Comentário aparte, como antologia de contos sejam de ficção especulativa sejam de realismo mágico, The Inner City é um trabalho interessante que permite uma exploração da reacção do indivíduo a uma série de situações caricatas - por vezes absolutamente surreais - e que terminam quase sempre numa nota auto-analítica, em tom de descoberta ou de transformação do sujeito. Os enredos, esses são de uma multiplicidade e heterogeneidade que só se compreende sabendo que os quinze contos foram publicados separadamente entre 1997 e 2011. Desde crianças que se transformam em animais, híbridos genéticos de humano e cão criados para serem servis a pessoas que nascem da terra como plantas mas já adultos, vestidos e com intenções bem definidas e outras que se tornam parte de um oceano alienígena que mais parece um sincício, tudo pode acontecer nas obras de Karen Heuler. Tocando em temáticas como a experimentação biológica e genética, a ecologia, a religião e a engenharia social, a novidade aqui reside principalmente na naturalidade com que a maioria das personagens encaram estes fenómenos, o que permite à autora guiar o leitor por caminhos inesperados. O foco recai sempre sobre uma pessoa, a sua visão dos acontecimentos, a sua participação neles ou comportamento perante eles e aquilo em que a pessoa se torna ou que descobre ser, algo que de certa forma se aproxima de Kafka ou mesmo Camus. Há constantemente um interpelação à mente do leitor, a quem são mostradas realidades que dificilmente não o farão questionar o seu conceito de pessoa, de sociedade, de humanidade ou de moralidade.
Uma obra recomendada a quem gostar de ficção curta especulativa. Fico com vontade de ler algo mais desta autora, venham daí as sugestões.

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Another book I had the opportunity to read through NetGalley, and this time a blind bet, considering I didn't even know the author and the description wasn't really specific. No regrets. Though, as is unavoidable in anthologies, there were some stories I liked much more than others, in general the book was very interesting, with some original ideas and approaches different from what I'm used to.
On her website, Karen Heuler says she writes magic realism, lead there by reading Gabriel García Márquez, and I do see some similarity between some of her stories and the little I've read of Haruki Murakami, other author associated with this genre. I still can't move past my feeling that this is but another part of speculative fiction isolated from science fiction and fantasy and associated with literary fiction for commercial reasons.
Side note apart, as an anthology of short tales - be them whatever genre one says - The Inner City is an interesting work that allows for an exploration of the individual's reaction to some odd situations - often quite surreal - which end in a self-analytical tone. The plots are of such an heterogeneity that one can only understand it knowing that they were published separately between 1997 and 2011. From kids that turn into animals, human-dog hybrids to people born from the ground like plants (though adult, dressed and decided) and others that become part of an alien ocean that reminded me of a syncytium, anything can happen in the works of Karen Heuler. Addressing themes such as bio-genetic experimentation, ecology, religion and social engineering, what's new here is the simple and natural way in which characters deal with the awkward situations, allowing the author to lead the reader through unexpected paths. The focus is always on the person, her vision of the phenomena, her participation in or behaviour facing them and what she turns into or finds out about herself, creating a narrative that reminds me of Kafka or even Camus. The reader is shown realities that constantly question his concept of person, of society, of humanity or morality.
A recommended work to all those who enjoy speculative short fiction. I now want to read more of this author, any suggestions?

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All by Laird Barron

I asked for an advanced e-version of this book from Netgalley because I really liked the name and cover and also because it's about time I read some good horror stories. The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All is not only the first of Laird Barron's works I've read but also the first time I read a horror anthology. I haven't even read H.P. Lovecraft I'm afraid. So take this as a beginner's review, someone who didn't really have specific expectations or previous works in the genre to compare to. The book will be made available on April the 2nd.

This book collects nine stories and I'll start by talking a bit about each of them.

The first tale is Blackwood's Baby, a nice introduction into the theme and the author's apparent intent. We follow a hunter who gets invited to a special hunt, in a forest known to be haunted or else associated to some supernatural infernal being and those who cut deals with him. We are given all the campfire chills we would expect from such a typical setting, but at a pace and with such a surprising build up and development that puts it miles away from most of the plots we see in horror films. Barron even has space to explore some issues of social hierarchy but the two things that stand out in Blackwood's Baby are the main character, a complex and mysterious Luke Honey who really drives the story, and the ending which keeps nagging you at the back of your mind long after you've read it. I noticed that while at first, just after finishing the story, I was rather confused, probably because I am not used to this kind of theme and storytelling, after delving more into the book I came to like it much more. The fact that the author doesn't put all the evil in the supernatural beings and allows the humans to have the worst intentions and actions gave me hope that this would be something more than a bunch of scary stories. 

After all the weirdness of the first one, The Redfield Girls starts off as a very simple story. Some women who travel on vacations together, this time forced to take a new element, Bernice's niece who appeared without warning at her door the day before the trip. Of course they had to go to a a place with a lake which here represents the unknown and scary and also the place where Bernice's aunt died years ago. The characters are very believable and their actions seem genuine but the plot, apart from one or two good moments, is somewhat predictable and the spookiness didn't work as well as in other cases. I liked The Redfield Girls, mostly for the "girls" themselves and for the play the facts versus its interpretation and people's imagination of lack thereof, but it's far from the best story here.

Hand of Glory on the other hand is my favourite story of the collection and the only one I felt I'd keep on reading if there was more written on those characters and setting. Johnny Cope - the main character - is a hit-man who was attacked and sets out to investigate and get some good old revenge, something that turns out to be much more complicated that he thought. The whole investigation, the weird people he meets, the dark magic abounding and the overall uncertainty are really well played but the strong point is the development of the character and the insight into who he is, who he thinks he is or even who he wishes he could be. This becomes even better because at the same time he questions himself, his motives or purpose, he also feels he is surrounded by people of unknown or ever shifting allegiances and unreliable information. Laird Barron brings us a truly character driven story with a horror and suspense setting which works just right. Add up references to real people and history with a twist and some unique villains about whom we are never sure of anything and you know why Hand of Glory became one of best short stories I've read.

The next in line is The Carrion Gods in Their Heaven, where we follow an abused wife hiding from her former husband with her girlfriend in an old cabin in the woods. Everybody knows one shouldn't go to such a place if one is a character in a horror story, but if you think it's a bunch of film clichés, think again, the danger might not come from the forest or a haunted shack or whatever. Sometimes it's our own curiosity that dooms us as much as it saves us. This is an original tale based on a known myth of transformation into an animal. I wasn't really hooked by the plot or the characters but I liked the uncertain ending.

In The Siphon we return to what Laird Barron does best, a plot that gives the story a structure while allowing the reader to have some insights into the mind of the weird characters he creates. The main character is a psychopath but so are some others he meets in a tale where the greed of humans is paralleled with the hunger of some supernatural beings whose revelation, description and actions will make you squirm until the very end.

The Jaws of Saturn take us back to the setting of Hand of Glory, though even the very same Phil Wary manipulating and using people to his dark intent isn't enough to make it as interesting a story as the previous one. There is something more predictable and less scary about this plot and its main character. In spite of that, I liked the reference and the feeling I was slowly getting to know Phil, here portrayed as a dark magician in the open, all resistant to bullets, super strength and mind-control.

What to say about Vastation? I think the author had to try an array of psychoactive drugs in order to come up with this kind of storytelling. It's a surreal look into the mind and "life" of a godlike being, someone who is immortal, capable of time-travel and of all sorts of other superhuman things. In spite of all this lack of clarity, Vastation ends up being the best story at evoking a feeling of life (and death) as a circle and of how boring it all would become if one had to exist outside of it. Though it is true for all other, this was the story that most suffered from interrupted reading. If you can, read it all at once or at least during the same day. I believe the experience will end up much better than if you do otherwise.

The Men from Porlock is another very good horror tale that uses a forest to place the characters in a context where everything can happen, where the unknown is full of possibilities, where finding an isolated community who sacrifice people is both believable and terrifying. The name should tell most of the veteran readers that these men are as unwelcome interruption and by now one already knows what Laird allows his characters to do or suffer but it's the way things are revealed that makes this one of the best stories in the collection. And to think they only wanted to hunt for some food.

The last tale, More Dark, gives a weird ending to the book and was, unfortunately, the only one I didn't enjoy reading. This is due not only to the rather confusing text but also and mostly because it is a reference to real people, mostly horror authors I suppose, of whom I know nothing. This, added to the lack of explanation or insight into who the people in More Dark are made me feel uninterested and even bored at times, in spite of the looming darkness the author was still able to transmit. Some kind of metafiction in a genre I know little about couldn't work for me.

As a whole, this was a good collection, with a very good but versatile prose and a pervasive unsettling feeling - which probably comes from the fact that Laird Barron tends to describe the scariest moments and revelations as if the characters were in fact hallucinating. Connecting the stories is not only this hallucination but also that sensation that there is always something lurking in the shadows, on the corner of the character's eye (or is it on the corner of my eye?) that we never really grasp. The references to myth and culture and the characters or ideas that appear in more than one story add to the excitement and make the anthology work as a whole. The different ways the author explored death are still with me, making me think about ends, beginnings, transitions and even considering the possibility that most of the moments we see as endings, destructions or disappearances, are thought of as such because of our own lack of knowledge and self-confidence. Most of those moments end up as being little transitions into "more of the same". Might death be, in spite of all the awe and terror most cultures and religions associate with it, just another one of those, a way into something quite like the life we had until then?
As a final note, I must say that even though I'm not really into reading horror - by itself, as entertainment, I prefer epic fantasy or science fiction - Laird Barron convinced me with the main characters he creates, some of the best, most complex and fleshed out I've seen in short fiction. My favourite stories were Hand of Glory, The Siphon and The Men from Porlock, previously published in The Book of Cthulhu II, Blood and Other Cravings and The Book of Cthulhu, respectively.

If you like horror, read The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All. If want to try it out and feel like you need some strong characters and thought-provoking stories to enjoy it, then Hand of Glory is definitely for you. If you don't like horror stories, undefined mythologies and unexplained mysteries, stay away from this. In my case, if I ever return to horror anthologies, I'll be sure to look for Laird Barron in the participant authors list.

The thing that awaits us all, according to Laird Barron, beautiful is not.

Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories edited by John Joseph Adams

I requested this anthology from NetGalley because of the name - who doesn't want to read anything good related to Brave New World? - and because it was edited by John Joseph Adams whose work I've been curious about for a while. I got this selection which consists in the three short stories added to its second edition. Another important factor was my being a fan of dystopian fiction.

The three stories have a previous sort of preface where the author is presented and the theme of the tale that follows is hinted or offered some background information.

The first story is The Cull by Robert Reed and was probably my favourite of the three. It reminded me of Wool, in which it follows a community shut off from the outside world where individuals are excluded when they step out of line apparently by sending them away from the place to an outside world where they surely can't survive. Similarities kind of end right there though. We are told the story by an android medical doctor who is a kind of keeper, simultaneously the doctor and the judge of the humans he "tends to". This tending involves the use of some brain implants that keep everyone in the community (or almost everyone) feeling happy all the time - and this is where I smiled and remembered Huxley's soma. He slowly unveils not only what happens to a kid who is becoming dangerous, behaving aggressively and rather unpredictably in various situations, but also what his intentions towards the whole community are. But he does it so slyly and slowly that the reader is as tricked as the kid or the people right to the very end and is still left questioning how to should judge the doctor's actions.

The second story, by Jennifer Pelland, is called Personal Jesus (yes, the Depeche Mode song). Here, this concept is given a very material interpretation: your Personal Jesus is an object that everyone in the country has connected to their body, forever controlling your social and personal behaviour by means of electric shocks full of divine love and care. The fact that it is written as an enumeration of rules, as if you were given the leaflet on how to live in the Ecclesiastical States of America, adds to the fun and had me laughing out loud.

The last story is The Perfect Match by Ken Liu and I'll start by saying it isn't just a romance in the dystopian age. It does have some of that, but the main focus is driven widely away from it and into the exploration of what this world of communications and informations directed by algorithms can lead us to. There were some moments where the narrator decides to tell you the interpretation you could be making on your own, which is a bit annoying specially in a story exploring this theme, but overall it's a good tale and does question very important issues. Ken Liu reminds us, on one side, that we are already being controlled by those who choose which news or updates to put up at the top of our lists or timelines, and on the other side, of what a world where we grow isolated, each one only seeing and doing what he supposedly wants or likes a priori, looks like.

The book ends with some recommendation pages, on dystopian films and books worth watching or reading. Something I should never read again, should I want to have money to buy food and pay bills and space in my room to live.
This selection worked really well as a sneak preview of the anthology, so much that I instantly added the book to my wishlist. Highly recommended for people who like dystopian works, short fiction or overall science fiction fans.

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Requisitei esta antologia no NetGalley por causa do nome - qualquer coisa relacionada com o Admirável Mundo Novo me interessa - por ter sido editada por John Joseph Adams, cujo trabalho me desperta bastante curiosidade, e por ser ficção distópica. Foi-me dado acesso a esta selecção de três histórias que foram adicionadas à primeira edição publicada.

Cada história começa com uma apresentação do seu autor e uma introdução ou referência relacionada com o tema a explorar de seguida.

A primeira história é The Cull de Robert Reed e foi provavelmente a minha favorita. Lembrou-me do Wool por ter uma sociedade isolada do mundo exterior onde indivíduos são expulsos para o exterior quando se tornam diferentes, perigosos, na expectativa de que morram sem recursos. As semelhanças, no entanto, ficam-se por aqui. Em The Cull a história é contada por um andróide que é uma espécie de pastor, simultaneamente médico e juiz dos humanos que "guarda". Tomar conta dos humanos aqui implica o uso de implantes cerebrais que o andróide controla de forma a manter toda a gente - ou quase toda - constantemente feliz (recordando-me a soma do Huxley). Ele vai-nos revelando lentamente não só o destino de um miúdo que se tornou perigoso, agressivo e imprevisível, mas também quais são as suas intenções para toda a comunidade. Mas fá-lo de tal forma, lenta e sorrateiramente, que nos engana tanto como às outras personagens e nos deixa, no final, a questionar como julgar as suas acções.

A segunda história, de Jennifer Pelland chama-se Personal Jesus (sim, a canção dos Depeche Mode). Aqui, o conceito é interpretado de uma forma muito material: o Personal Jesus é um objecto que cada pessoa no país tem inseparavelmente ligado ao seu corpo, controlando para sempre o seu comportamento pessoal e social através de choques eléctricos cheios de amor divino. O facto de estar escrito como uma enumeração de regras, como se se trata-se de um panfleto sobre como viver nos Ecclesiastical States of America, torna tudo ainda mais engraçado.

A última história é The Perfect Match de Ken Liu e começo já por informar que não é só uma história romântica como o nome poderia indicar. Aliás o conto foca-se principalmente na exploração da sociedade a que este mundo com algoritmos que controlam a informação que temos e as comunicações que vemos pode levar. Houve alguns momentos em que o narrador decide começar a oferecer a sua interpretação das coisas em vez de a deixar ao critério do leitor, algo irritante em especial dado o tema, mas em geral é uma boa história que questiona situações extremamente relevantes nos dias de hoje. O autor não só nos lembra do quão controlados somos por quem decide o que aparece nas nossas listas e timelines mas também de quais seriam as consequências de vivermos isolados, cada um exposto apenas às coisas que, a priori, é provável gostar.

O livro termina com algumas listas de recomendações de filmes ou livros distópicos, algo que eu nunca mais devia ver, sob pena de ficar sem dinheiro e espaço no quarto para viver.

Esta selecção funcionou muito bem como uma previsão da antologia, e gostei de tal forma que quero comprar o livro, que me parece de recomendar não só a quem como eu adora distopias como a fãs de ficção curta e ficção científica em geral.