The Disaster Area (Paperback)

The first story `Storm-bird, Storm-dreamer`, is in part an early example of one of Ballard`s recurring obsessions: flight. The story also carries strong echoes of S.T.Coleridge`s `The Ryme Of The Ancient Mariner`, particularly in the creeping sense of guilt felt by the main charecter after having killed the last of the remaining giant mutant birds. The same character then attempts to fly using wings made from the feathers of the dead birds, symbolising both a desire for transendence and a return to nature.

The symbolic use of flight also appears here in `The Concentration City`. Set in a far future where the earth is so crowded that it has become effectively one vast multi-layered city, the story follows a young man who dreams of flight and building a flying machine in a world where flying is not only no longer possible, but the very concepts of `free space` and `flight` are no longer understood or have any meaning. But by merely concieving of them, he has broken an important barrier.

Somewhat reminiscent of Philip K Dick, `The Subliminal Man` depicts a terrifying near future where twelve-lane expresseways and shopping complexes cover half the land, and people work twelve hours a day to buy consumer goods which become obsolete and have to be replaced within weeks. Hidden behind the massive billboards which line each side of the expressways are wastelands of junkyards and huge pyramids of jettisoned but perfectly functionable consumer items; cars, fridges etc, "gleaming silently like the refuse grounds of some forgotten El Derado". The main character becomes alarmed when he begins to suspect that the huge new signs, hundreds of feet high- but which seem to have no apparent use - may be being used to transmit subliminal advertising commands. The story is an uncharacteristicly straight-forward,but powerful warning about an over capitalised industrial society.

`Now wakes the sea` is another of Ballard`s explorations of the unspoken human desire to return to the womb, or the collective unconcious. The main character lives thousands of miles inland, but every night imagines that he sees the tide bringing the sea over the neighbouring rooftops, every day advancing a little further.

`Mr F. is Mr F.` also depicts this desire to return to a pre-uterine existence, but in a very different and far more literal way, with the main character undergoing a complete age reversal, resulting in the inevitable reverse pregnancy. Disturbing.

`Zone of Terror` is a story of a man, who through some time shift is continualy encountering his past self, but is unable to recognise this doppleganger as himself.

`Manhole 69` explores the possible side effects of induced sleep deprivation.

`The Impossible Man` depicts a future where due to a process of restorative surgery the life expectancy has risen to a century. But in the town where the story is set, the elderly inhabitants begin to mysteriously refuse the surgery which will prolong their life.

These are some of Ballard`s best short stories. I also recommend `Myths Of The Near Future`.