- Mass Market Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (Sep 1966)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140024999
- ISBN-13: 978-0140024999
- Product Dimensions: 17.4 x 10.8 x 1.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 364,855 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
From the author of CRASH and EMPIRE OF THE SUN, a reissued collection of short stories last published in 1985, which examine the paradox that exists between humanity's creative abilities and destructive impulses. Includes THE TERMINAL BEACH, about an island used for atomic bomb tests and subsequently deserted, and THE GIOCONDA OF THE TWILIGHT NOON.
About the Author
SALES POINTS Reissued in a new cover style alongside The Voices of Time J G Ballard is widely recognised as one of the finest writers of the 20th century His novel Empire of the Sun won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was later filmed by Steven Spielberg. 'Ballard's ferocious intelligence, his wit, his cantankerousness, and in particular his extraordinary rendering of the perverse pleasures of today's paranoia, make him one of the grand magicians of modern fiction' Brian Aldiss 'It is utterly appropriate to number Ballard among the true contemporary radicals of the imagination . . . His best work is simply a new way of looking at the world' New Musical Express
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
ALL day they had moved steadily upstream, occasionally pausing to raise the propeller and cut away the knots of weed, and by 3 o'clock had covered some seventy-five miles. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
ALL day they had moved steadily upstream, occasionally pausing to raise the propeller and cut away the knots of weed, and by 3 o'clock had covered some seventy-five miles. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Containing stories written in the early to mid sixties "The Terminal Beach" is arguably the best collection of Ballard's short fiction. It is not, in my opinion, overly hubristic to claim that two of the pieces, "The Drowned Giant" and the story of the collection's title (both written in 1964)are worthy of comparison to shorts produced by literary masters like Kafka and Borges. In the former, a dead giant - the body of a man of "Homeric statue" is washed ashore on the coast of an unknown city. What surprises the reader however is the reaction of the citizens towards this "amazing event": even Swift's Gulliver might be surpised. In "The Terminal Beach", Ballard grapples head on with the existential angst of the Cold War, or as the protagonist Traven calls it, "The Thermo-nuclear Noon" of Western Culture. This story, with its strangely fractured narrative style, was a ground-breaking move for the author which led to classics like "The Atrocity Exhibition" and "Crash". The remainder of the collection is supported by pieces of high quality, if not, so mercurial as the two leads. "The End-Game" is a study of guilt and innocence (Ballard fans will remember the importance of these themes to "Empire of the Sun") whilst "The Delta at Sunset" and "The Gioconda of the Twilight Noon" draw upon the author's surrealist imagination. If you only ever read one collection of Ballard shorts (if you ever find yourself looking out across the sea from the world's last beach!)this is the one to take.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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5 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Genius at work
14 April 2004
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This is a collection of short stories by J.G. Ballard, whose surrealistic approach to science fiction reaches its apex in this effort. "End Game", a story of executions in the future, leaves the reader not exactly knowing if the imprisoned political leader is about to be executed at its end, but the character development borders on the fabulous.
Also recommended most highly are "Now Comes the Sea", and "Chronopolis", the latter being the story of a society where time measurement is outlawed, and of the outlaw who wants to bring it back.. You will never forget any of these stories. V
Very, very highly recommended. This is a genius at his best.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Fairly good collection of stories
14 April 1999
Format:Paperback
Maybe even a 4.5. Not as comprehensive as "The Best Short Stories of...", but it's a good intro to Ballard's work. It gives a first-time reader a good idea of what to expect. Ballard writes some top-notch stories (The Drowned Giant, Bilennium, Deep End - all included here), but in his collections, they always seem to get diluted by the not-so-greats. Still, the majority of the stories in this book are quite good; more forward-thinking and original than anything that came out of that period. I think the best quality of his stories is that they deal with societal concerns, and not just sci-fi. Quite an enjoyable book.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Luminous Elegy
26 Mar 2007
Format:Paperback
The title story has a rich and luminous serenity that is both gentle and unsettling. It is very characteristic of Ballard's best work, and serves as a bridge between his earlier science fiction books, and his later surrealistic novels. There is a distinct link to T.S. Eliot..."The Terminal Beach" could be a response to "Burnt Norton." This book is an excellent introduction to one of the great writers of the 20th Century.
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