Kingdom Come
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'Dystopias are Ballard's stock-in-trade and, when on song, he animates them better than anyone else!it takes a master novelist to pick out the small details!fascinating.' Sunday Telegraph 'It is his ability to summon a deteriorated but recognisable modern world into being that makes him among the finest dystopians at work.' Sunday Times 'We're in Ballard-land, his old archetypes at war in a familiar-yet-strange terrain, and that should be compelling enough for any reader!Ballard, paradoxically, with all his characters gripped by obsession and necessity, is one of the great novelists of freedom.' Financial Times '"Kingdom Come" looks like a report on the state of modern Britain, but it's really a report on the state of J.G. Ballard's head, and the good news is that it's as fertile as ever!"Kingdom Come" is impressively packed with brilliant apercus.' Observer 'Mesmeric!you read this novel for his prescient vision, his acute insights and his shards of wit.' Tatler 'The magus of Shepperton is on tip-top form. No-one writes with such enchanted clarity or strange power as James Graham Ballard.' Scotsman '"Kingdom Come" encapsulates everything for which J.G.Ballard is admired!Simply put, "Kingdom Come" distils the best of Ballard to confirm he is still one of our finest living novelists.' Metro '"Kingdom Come" is important, germaine, timely and creepy, a tidal wrack of ideas washed up on the artificial beach of our resort culture.' Will Self '"Kingom Come" is a worthy addition to an extraordinary body of work. It is impossible to read one of JG Ballard's books and not to marvel at his style and ability to capture the times in which we live. His writing has been a source of excitement and inspiration to me since I was reading library books under the covers by the light of a battery torch.' Louise Welsh 'Entertaining!fragmented narratives!emerge as perfect, threatening little Ballardian vignettes.' TLS 'J.G. Ballard is the undisputed laureate of suburban psychosis!"Kingdom Come" is a brilliant novel.' Literary Review
The Times
'Funny, chilling and prescient, this is certainly a novel whose
message no one can afford to ignore.'
message no one can afford to ignore.'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Powerful message undermined by a hopeless plot.,
By Hanglemez Pallaccini (Quito, Ecuador) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Kingdom Come (Paperback)
Whilst it probably wasn't the best to read this as my first introduction to Ballard I still felt extremely disappointed after hearing so many good things about him.
The "consumerism as a dystopia" is a grand and important theme and the first part contains many self-contained mini-essays delivered by the various characters on this subject that are well written and thought out. The deep problem is that it should have stayed as a non-fiction essay on where our consumerist lifestyles are leading to. To hang all the ideas onto a weak, stupid plot with minimal characterisation just spoils the message...(and I still don't understand Richard's motivations to move from hunting his father's killer to helping out the Metrocentre and his extremely slow understanding of the link to fascism that we the reader can spot in the early pages.) Anyway so we have Richard the protagonist speaking to each minor player; a lot of philosophising from them; Richard's own reflections; and then a tiny bit of action to move the plot forward. Repeat several times. And then in the second part go into standard Hollywood-style dystopian madness which we've already seen in countless movies. Sorry...but this is seriously, seriously unoriginal stuff by the end. So two stars for making a well-written and argued meditation on consumerism/fascism/madness etc...but really, don't bother with this one if you're new to Ballard like I was...try his earlier work first.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Hard work to finish,
By Gazza (Glasgow) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Kingdom Come (Paperback)
I love Ballard but found this to be one of his weakest efforts yet. Beautifully written, naturally, but I struggled to finish the book over a period of several weeks. I think possibly the problem is the weakness of Ballard's targets here - after all, a suburban shopping mall hardly inspires real extremes of feeling - these things are so ten-a-penny now that, even in a town like Brooklands, the concept can hardly be a novelty. This is the first Ballard book where I can honestly say, with reluctance and disappointment, that I found the notes and interviews section at the end more entertaining than the novel itself. Hopefully the next one will be a return to form.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
No exaggeration,
By
This review is from: Kingdom Come (Paperback)
Ballard's Kingdom Come might be viewed as an exaggerated take on 21st century UK, but consumerism as a sort of deity, isolationsism, xenophobia, hooliganism, violence, the cult of celebrity, and a generally dumbed down public are familiar phenomena in dear old Blightie. So the book is relevant.
Unfortunately, this is a short story dragged out to the length of a novel, the characters are mainly unbleievable, and the narrative is rather dull - the prose, of course, is excellent.
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