- Paperback: 208 pages
- Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (21 April 1994)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099334712
- ISBN-13: 978-0099334712
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 14 x 1.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 601,527 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
A collection of ten short stories originally written for magazines such as "Time Out" in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The settings include an American wasteland of drained swimming pools, lushest Knightsbridge, a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, and a suburb of Cape Kennedy.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
MY introduction to Ballard, this book blew my mind like nothing I'd read before. Ballard's short stories from the 50's to the 80's are all essential for anyone who appreciates imaginative fiction, and this book is no exception. These are stunningly imaginative and perfectly constructed short stories. Ballard sets the standard by which all other short story writers must be judged.
Format:Paperback
The various stories here encompass the range of Ballard's ideas and subjects prevalent in his work; alienation, the influence of technology, the questioning of sexual and social convention, dysfunctional psychologies, etc. it's all here.
Sadly although the quality of writing shows the promise of his best work, the direction and structure of some of these stories does not. Some of them are merely aimless or disappointing, but some of them are downright boring, which is not something I imagined myself writing about Ballard's work.
For fans, I can recommend these stories as accompaniments to the likes of the Atrocity Exhibition. For those new to Ballard's work, I would suggest starting with Crash instead, which is a masterpiece.
Sadly although the quality of writing shows the promise of his best work, the direction and structure of some of these stories does not. Some of them are merely aimless or disappointing, but some of them are downright boring, which is not something I imagined myself writing about Ballard's work.
For fans, I can recommend these stories as accompaniments to the likes of the Atrocity Exhibition. For those new to Ballard's work, I would suggest starting with Crash instead, which is a masterpiece.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Life at a Tangent
3 May 2000
Format:Hardcover
I am not usually a devotee of the short story compilation, but found this collection by Ballard, surely the most cerebral of sci-fi authors, to be utterly compelling. Nine of the works (the tenth "Dead Time" seems oddly out of place here), are complete entities in their own right, but together, compliment each other into creating a bizarre and disturbing, but scarily plausible vision of what humankind is becoming. Civil war erupts in the UK, whilst elsewhere, cyber-recluses fester in their fortress homes. Folk experiment with practical time travel, living their lives in fleeting moments of lucidity, whilst others get married and have families with spouses they can never meet. My particular favourite The Smile, rings faint echoes of Wilde's Dorien Gray and chilled me to the bone though I read it on a hot sunny day in my garden. Ballard's visionary style is as innovative as ever, often employing startling imagery that grabs the reader at a visceral level. Myths will not be to everyone's taste. If, however, you are an adventurous soul, I thouroughly recommend this book which, although parts of which are a quarter of a century old, remains hugely valid today.
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