Synopses & Reviews
First published in 1978, this collection of nineteen of Ballard's best short stories is as timely and informed as ever. His tales of the human psyche and its relationship to nature and technology, as viewed through a strong microscope, were eerily prescient and now provide greater perspective on our computer-dominated culture. Ballard's voice and vision have long served as a font of inspiration for today's cyber-punks, the authors and futurist who brought the information age into the mainstream.
J.G. Ballard was the author of numerous books, including Empire of the Sun, the underground classic Crash, and The Kindness of Women. He was revered as one of the most important writers of fiction to address the consequences of twentieth-century technology. First published in 1978, this collection of nineteen of Ballard's best short stories is as timely and informed as ever. His tales of the human psyche and its relationship to nature and technology, as viewed through a strong microscope, were eerily prescient and now provide greater perspective on our computer-dominated culture. Ballard's voice and vision have long served as a font of inspiration for today's cyber-punks, the authors and futurist who brought the information age into the mainstream.
"A visionary in both style and substance . . .The literary equivalent of Salvador Dalí or Max Ernst."The Washington Post Book World
"A writer of enormous inventive powers. Ballard has, like Calvino, a remarkable gift for filling the empty, deprived spaces of modern life with the invisible cities and the wonder worlds of the imagination."Malcolm Bradbury, The New York Times Book Review
"Complex, obsessive, frequently poetic, and always disquieting chronicles of nature rebelling against humans, of the survival of barbarism in a world of mechanical efficieny, of entropy, anomie, breakdown, ruin . . . The blasted landscapes that his characters inhabit are both external settings and states of mind."Luc Sante
Review
"Ballard is among our finest writers of fiction." Anthony Burgess
Review
"A visionary in both style and substance....The literary equivalent of Salvador Dali or Max Ernst." The Washington Post Book World
Review
"A writer of enormous inventive powers. Ballard has, like Calvino, a remarkable gift for filling the empty, deprived spaces of modern life with the invisible cities and the wonder worlds of the imagination." Malcolm Bradbury, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Complex, obsessive, frequently poetic, and always disquieting chronicles of nature rebelling against humans, of the survival of barbarism in a world of mechanical efficiency, of entropy, anomie, breakdown, ruin....The blasted landscapes that his characters inhabit are both external settings and states of mind." Luc Sante
Review
"A visionary in both style and substance . . .The literary equivalent of Salvador Dali or Max Ernst."—
The Washington Post Book World"A writer of enormous inventive powers. Ballard has, like Calvino, a remarkable gift for filling the empty, deprived spaces of modern life with the invisible cities and the wonder worlds of the imagination."—Malcolm Bradbury, The New York Times Book Review
"Complex, obsessive, frequently poetic, and always disquieting chronicles of nature rebelling against humans, of the survival of barbarism in a world of mechanical efficieny, of entropy, anomie, breakdown, ruin . . . The blasted landscapes that his characters inhabit are both external settings and states of mind."—Luc Sante
Synopsis
First published in 1978, this collection of nineteen of Ballard's best short stories is as timely and informed as ever. His tales of the human psyche and its relationship to nature and technology, as viewed through a strong microscope, were eerily prescient and now provide greater perspective on our computer-dominated culture. Ballard's voice and vision have long served as a font of inspiration for today's cyber-punks, the authors and futurist who brought the information age into the mainstream.
About the Author
J.G. Ballard is the author of numerous books, including Empire of the Sun, the underground classic Crash, and The Kindness of Women. He is revered as one of the most important writers of fiction to address the consequences of twentieth-century technology. His latest book is Super-Cannes. He died in 2009.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Concentration City
Manhole
Chronopolis
The Voices of Time
Deep End
The Overloaded Man
Billennium
The Garden of the Time
Thirteen for Centaurus
The Subliminal Man
The Cage of Sand
End Game
The Drowned Giant
The Terminal Beach
The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D
The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race
The Atrocity Exhibition
Plan for the Assassination of Jacqueline Kennedy
Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagen