The Spirit of Science Fiction

Admirers will find . . . a satisfying proleptic glimpse of his picaresque masterpiece, 1998’s The Savage Detectives . . . [This] gem-choked puzzle of a book . . . serves as a key to Bolaño’s later work, unlocking clues to his abiding obsessions … [and] is a hardy forerunner that stands on its own.New York Times

The book’s very premise – two young poets drift around the literary underworld of Mexico City – reads like a dress rehearsal for The Savage Detectives, similarly soaked in poetry, disillusion, and longing. The novel is dappled with recognizably Bolañan pleasures, though they are mostly incidental. What The Spirit of Science Fiction offers most is the tingle of the nascent. It allows us to perceive the avalanche in the snowball before it rolls downhill.Paris Review

Bolaño-philes will relish this glimpse into the conflicting facets of their hero’s personality, but the book is more than an autobiographical curio. It brings the Mexico City of the Seventies to life . . . The novel’s sunny sense of what it is like to be a young man falling in love – with words and ideas as well as with women – is irresistible.Telegraph

The Spirit of Science Fiction is structured unconventionally, enticing the reader to solve its mysteries. Bolaño adroitly braids three related narratives . . . an entertaining, lyrical and accomplished novel.Wall Street Journal