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The Day of Forever
Contents:
- The Day of Forever (1966)
- Prisoner of the Coral Deep (1964)
- Tomorrow is a Million Years (1966)
- The Man on the 99th Floor (1962)
- The Waiting Grounds (1959)
- The Last World of Mr. Goddard (1960)
- The Gentle Assassin (1961)
- The Sudden Afternoon (1963)
- The Insane Ones (1962)
- The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered As a Downhill Motor Race (1966)
- The Day of Forever (1966)
- Prisoner of the Coral Deep (1964)
- Tomorrow is a Million Years (1966)
- The Man on the 99th Floor (1962)
- The Waiting Grounds (1959)
- The Last World of Mr. Goddard (1960)
- The Gentle Assassin (1961)
- The Sudden Afternoon (1963)
- The Insane Ones (1962)
- The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered As a Downhill Motor Race (1966)
144 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1967
About the author
J.G. Ballard
472 books4,149 followersJames Graham "J. G." Ballard (15 November 1930 – 19 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Ballard came to be associated with the New Wave of science fiction early in his career with apocalyptic (or post-apocalyptic) novels such as The Drowned World (1962), The Burning World (1964), and The Crystal World (1966). In the late 1960s and early 1970s Ballard focused on an eclectic variety of short stories (or "condensed novels") such as The Atrocity Exhibition (1970), which drew closer comparison with the work of postmodernist writers such as William S. Burroughs. In 1973 the highly controversial novel Crash was published, a story about symphorophilia and car crash fetishism; the protagonist becomes sexually aroused by staging and participating in real car crashes. The story was later adapted into a film of the same name by Canadian director David Cronenberg.
While many of Ballard's stories are thematically and narratively unusual, he is perhaps best known for his relatively conventional war novel, Empire of the Sun (1984), a semi-autobiographical account of a young boy's experiences in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War as it came to be occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army. Described as "The best British novel about the Second World War" by The Guardian, the story was adapted into a 1987 film by Steven Spielberg.
The literary distinctiveness of Ballard's work has given rise to the adjective "Ballardian", defined by the Collins English Dictionary as "resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. G. Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments." The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry describes Ballard's work as being occupied with "eros, thanatos, mass media and emergent technologies".
While many of Ballard's stories are thematically and narratively unusual, he is perhaps best known for his relatively conventional war novel, Empire of the Sun (1984), a semi-autobiographical account of a young boy's experiences in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War as it came to be occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army. Described as "The best British novel about the Second World War" by The Guardian, the story was adapted into a 1987 film by Steven Spielberg.
The literary distinctiveness of Ballard's work has given rise to the adjective "Ballardian", defined by the Collins English Dictionary as "resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. G. Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments." The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry describes Ballard's work as being occupied with "eros, thanatos, mass media and emergent technologies".
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
March 6, 2021
Magnífica antología de relatos de Ballard, autor que ha sabido retratar como nadie paisajes extraños, mundos apocalípticos, donde los personajes son un espejo de dichos entornos.
El día eterno. La Tierra se ha detenido, ya no rota sobre sí misma. Fascinante relato donde los personajes buscan soñar.
Prisionero de los abismos de coral. Extraño relato, sobre una caracola, océanos y la memoria.
Mañana es un millón de años. Un astronauta está atrapado en un planeta donde cree que sus sueños son reales.
El piso 99. Historia de venganza. Una genialidad.
Zona de espera. Maravilloso relato, donde el protagonista se dispone a relevar en un observatorio a un compañero que lleva años en el planeta.
El último mundo del señor Goddard. El protagonista trabaja en un centro comercial. Es un tipo anodino, pero cuando regresa a su casa cada día, “observa” su secreto.
El asesino bondadoso. Una historia de viajes en el tiempo… a la Ballard.
La tarde repentina. El protagonista tiene recuerdos de una vida que no ha vivido. Magnífico.
Los locos. Y otra genialidad de Ballard, donde nos narra un mundo donde la psiquiatría está prohibida.
El día eterno. La Tierra se ha detenido, ya no rota sobre sí misma. Fascinante relato donde los personajes buscan soñar.
Prisionero de los abismos de coral. Extraño relato, sobre una caracola, océanos y la memoria.
Mañana es un millón de años. Un astronauta está atrapado en un planeta donde cree que sus sueños son reales.
El piso 99. Historia de venganza. Una genialidad.
Zona de espera. Maravilloso relato, donde el protagonista se dispone a relevar en un observatorio a un compañero que lleva años en el planeta.
El último mundo del señor Goddard. El protagonista trabaja en un centro comercial. Es un tipo anodino, pero cuando regresa a su casa cada día, “observa” su secreto.
El asesino bondadoso. Una historia de viajes en el tiempo… a la Ballard.
La tarde repentina. El protagonista tiene recuerdos de una vida que no ha vivido. Magnífico.
Los locos. Y otra genialidad de Ballard, donde nos narra un mundo donde la psiquiatría está prohibida.
March 26, 2022
8 días y 220 páginas (+2000 scrolleadas en el Kindle). El segundo libro que leo del autor, y sus ideas me siguen pareciendo fantasiosamente perturbadoras.
Creo que el autor tiene la capacidad de crear grandes paisajes, situaciones e imágenes con tan poco. Tiene la ambivalencia de crear una colonia espacial, o una carretera en el Cairo. Esto me encanta. Sin embargo me fue complicado conectar con alguno de los cuentos, ya que son muy diferentes entre sí. Probablemente mis favoritos sean los del principio (el día eterno, prisioneros del abismo) y los del final (el asesino bondadoso y los locos).
Habrá que seguir leyendo cosas de Ballard, para intentar entenderlo. Aunque no creo que sea posible. Bien.
Creo que el autor tiene la capacidad de crear grandes paisajes, situaciones e imágenes con tan poco. Tiene la ambivalencia de crear una colonia espacial, o una carretera en el Cairo. Esto me encanta. Sin embargo me fue complicado conectar con alguno de los cuentos, ya que son muy diferentes entre sí. Probablemente mis favoritos sean los del principio (el día eterno, prisioneros del abismo) y los del final (el asesino bondadoso y los locos).
Habrá que seguir leyendo cosas de Ballard, para intentar entenderlo. Aunque no creo que sea posible. Bien.
July 31, 2020
Recopilación de algunos cuentos publicados por Ballard en los 50 y los 60, historias de corte más clásico en las que no obstante ya asoma esa capacidad de crear imágenes sobrecogedoras y la obsesión por los mundos muertos. Mi relato favorito es el que da nombre el volumen, ambientado en una Tierra que ha dejado de girar y cuyo tiempo se ha detenido. A pesar de que este Ballard tempranero no es de mis favoritos, leerle siempre resulta sugerente.
March 27, 2020
An early collection of short stories from Ballard, ten tales with many of his abiding personalities and themes already in place, such as those obsessed men known only by their surnames, and unusual psychological duels between doctors and patients.
The violence is at a minimum though, and there is no bizarre fetishization of technologies, which would loom large in his work later.
In the title story, the world has become stuck on its axis and a man called Halliday travels to the eternal dusk of Africa in search of sleep and his lost dreams. A typical Ballardian nightmare of surrealist art, deserted hotels, drained swimming pools and vague conflicts.
In 'Prisoner of the Coral Deep' a man holidaying by a shore discovers a beautiful shell and meets an enticing naiad, while in 'Tomorrow is a Million Miles' an escaped convict sees visions of famous earthly ships on a very different kind of shore.
'The Man on the 99th Floor' involves a man's inexplicable obsession to climb to the top of tall buildings. I don't even relish clinging to the top of the stairs. 'Theting Grounds', the longest piece, features the discovery of an alien megalith on a distant planet in what has to be a story inspired by 2001 A Space Odyssey. 'The Last World of Mr Goddard' finds a god-like Gulliver spurned by his own Lilliputlians. How belittling!
Then more dodgy doctors. Dr Jamieson and his suitcase check into a hotel with a great view of King James III's coronation procession in 'The Gentle Assassin'; a doctor's memories begin to be overwritten with another's in 'The Sudden Afternoon'; and 'The Insane Ones' imagines a world after psychiatry has been outlawed. Oh happy day!
The final story, 'The Killing Ground' sees a beleaguered British liberation army take on the invading U.S. army, which has taken its imperialist impulses to their logical conclusion and created 'a world Viet Nam'.
Nixon probably blacklisted Ballard's passport after that one.
The violence is at a minimum though, and there is no bizarre fetishization of technologies, which would loom large in his work later.
In the title story, the world has become stuck on its axis and a man called Halliday travels to the eternal dusk of Africa in search of sleep and his lost dreams. A typical Ballardian nightmare of surrealist art, deserted hotels, drained swimming pools and vague conflicts.
In 'Prisoner of the Coral Deep' a man holidaying by a shore discovers a beautiful shell and meets an enticing naiad, while in 'Tomorrow is a Million Miles' an escaped convict sees visions of famous earthly ships on a very different kind of shore.
'The Man on the 99th Floor' involves a man's inexplicable obsession to climb to the top of tall buildings. I don't even relish clinging to the top of the stairs. 'Theting Grounds', the longest piece, features the discovery of an alien megalith on a distant planet in what has to be a story inspired by 2001 A Space Odyssey. 'The Last World of Mr Goddard' finds a god-like Gulliver spurned by his own Lilliputlians. How belittling!
Then more dodgy doctors. Dr Jamieson and his suitcase check into a hotel with a great view of King James III's coronation procession in 'The Gentle Assassin'; a doctor's memories begin to be overwritten with another's in 'The Sudden Afternoon'; and 'The Insane Ones' imagines a world after psychiatry has been outlawed. Oh happy day!
The final story, 'The Killing Ground' sees a beleaguered British liberation army take on the invading U.S. army, which has taken its imperialist impulses to their logical conclusion and created 'a world Viet Nam'.
Nixon probably blacklisted Ballard's passport after that one.
August 15, 2023
if i had a nickel for everytime ballard named a character Judith i’d have FOUR nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened four times
November 9, 2011
"I am not a huge Ballard fan and this did not really change my mind about him. However loved the idea behind the title story in the collection - though I was not so keen on the actual execution of the story itself."
Read
June 29, 2016Yeah. Not bad, but actually not nearly as good as the two novels I've read. I did really like the one about the guy who has his town in the box, but a lot of them seem like kind of b-grade Twilight Zone stuff. Is there a stronger collection of short stories than this that someone can recommend?
November 27, 2025
The short stories in J. G. Ballard's The Day of Forever were originally published between 1959 and 1966, so definitely belonging to Ballard's early style—the period of his disaster trilogy, The Drowned World, The Drought, and The Crystal World. I read Panther's 1971 edition, which is somewhat marred, in my view, by one of the worst covers on any of Ballard's books. Panther put out many science fiction and fantasy paperbacks at this time with brilliant artwork on their covers, so the 1971 edition of The Day of Forever is an anomaly.
Perhaps The Day of Forever doesn't quite match the brilliancy of The Disaster Area or Vermilion Sands, both of which I had read recently, but it came close. One of the best of the collection for me was the title story, "The Day of Forever," which begins the whole book with the following paragraph:
"At Columbine Sept Heures it was always dusk. Here Halliday's beautiful neighbour, Gabrielle Szabo, walked through the evening, her silk robe stirring the fine sand into cerise clouds. From the balcony of the empty hotel near the artist's colony, Halliday would look out over the drained river at the unmoving shadows across the desert floor, the twilight of Africa, endless and unbroken, that beckoned to him with the promise of his lost dreams. The dark dunes, their crests touched by the spectral light, receded like the waves of a midnight sea" (p. 9).
Once again, I knew I was returning to the Ballard style that I loved. The highly stylized atmosphere of Vermilion Sands is here again, along with with Ballard's full-blown obsessions with the desert and beautiful, remote divas.
A second favourite of mine in the collection was "Tomorrow Is a Million Years," which begins, "In the evening the time-winds would blow across the sea of dreams" (p. 33). The bleak, stripped landscape this time belongs to another planet, though reminiscent of Vermilion Sands and perhaps also The Drought. Ballard writes,
"At seven o'clock the time-winds began to blow across the Sea of Dreams. As the sun fell away behind the western ridges, the long shadows of the sand-reefs crossed the lake-floor, dimming the quartz-veins as if closing off a maze of secret pathways" (p. 41).
Ballard juggles alternate realities; the marooned protagonist embraces the dreams he projects onto the alien landscape. Or is a kind of psychic field emerging from this alien landscape?
Admittedly, not every story is as good—but, if a book of short stories contains one or two or three brilliant and memorable creations, it is successful, in my view. The Day of Forever is very good early J. G. Ballard.
Perhaps The Day of Forever doesn't quite match the brilliancy of The Disaster Area or Vermilion Sands, both of which I had read recently, but it came close. One of the best of the collection for me was the title story, "The Day of Forever," which begins the whole book with the following paragraph:
"At Columbine Sept Heures it was always dusk. Here Halliday's beautiful neighbour, Gabrielle Szabo, walked through the evening, her silk robe stirring the fine sand into cerise clouds. From the balcony of the empty hotel near the artist's colony, Halliday would look out over the drained river at the unmoving shadows across the desert floor, the twilight of Africa, endless and unbroken, that beckoned to him with the promise of his lost dreams. The dark dunes, their crests touched by the spectral light, receded like the waves of a midnight sea" (p. 9).
Once again, I knew I was returning to the Ballard style that I loved. The highly stylized atmosphere of Vermilion Sands is here again, along with with Ballard's full-blown obsessions with the desert and beautiful, remote divas.
A second favourite of mine in the collection was "Tomorrow Is a Million Years," which begins, "In the evening the time-winds would blow across the sea of dreams" (p. 33). The bleak, stripped landscape this time belongs to another planet, though reminiscent of Vermilion Sands and perhaps also The Drought. Ballard writes,
"At seven o'clock the time-winds began to blow across the Sea of Dreams. As the sun fell away behind the western ridges, the long shadows of the sand-reefs crossed the lake-floor, dimming the quartz-veins as if closing off a maze of secret pathways" (p. 41).
Ballard juggles alternate realities; the marooned protagonist embraces the dreams he projects onto the alien landscape. Or is a kind of psychic field emerging from this alien landscape?
Admittedly, not every story is as good—but, if a book of short stories contains one or two or three brilliant and memorable creations, it is successful, in my view. The Day of Forever is very good early J. G. Ballard.
July 7, 2014
‘time: inner space: jg ballard
jg ballard author of the drowned world is the most exciting discovery in british post-war fiction
these ten stories mostly mainstream sf/fantasy date from a relatively early period in his career – characterised by their wit and forcefulness of invention they serve as a perfect introduction to Ballard’s strange obsessional world (and also furnish an invaluable key to his later more experimental writing)
time and space become dislocated as in some lsd nightmare; a man watches and waits over the vast immortality-echoing horizons of an alien planet; a woman, enigmatic and beautiful, stands on a cliff, jewelled madonna of the booming sea below – out of the cryptic consciousness of modern man ballard creates landscapes as haunting and valid as Dali’s duned deserts or Max Ernst’s silently screaming forests
here is ballard beginning…’
blurb to 1967 panther edition
The Day of Forever • ss The Impossible Man, Berkley, 1966
Prisoner of the Coral Deep • ss Argosy (UK) Mar '64; New Worlds May '65
Tomorrow Is a Million Years • ss Argosy (UK) Oct '66
The Man on the 99th Floor • ss New Worlds Jul '62
The Waiting Grounds • nv New Worlds Nov '59
The Last World of Mr. Goddard • ss Science-Fantasy #43 '60
The Gentle Assassin • ss New Worlds Dec '61
The Sudden Afternoon • ss Fantastic Sep '63
The Insane Ones • ss Amazing Jan '62
The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race
• ss Ambit #29 '66; New Worlds Feb '67
There are few people who have mastered the art of the SF short story to the extent that they do it consistently and brilliantly. An early example was HG Wells. My contemporary favourite is Ian Watson, and between them was JG Ballard. It’s a tragedy that Ballard seems these days to have turned away from SF in the direction of mainstream and is now concentrating (one imagines exclusively) on novels.
There are those who debate whether Ballard’s work was ever Science Fiction. Certainly, it confuses booksellers, as some place Ballard’s work in the mainstream fiction section, some on the SF shelves, with a bet-hedging minority of shops placing selections in both camps.
Certainly works like ‘The Crystal World’ which has certain scientific and fantastic elements within it, can be classed as SF while ‘Crash’ (although listed in Pringle’s ‘100 best SF Novels’) is rather more difficult to place within an SF context.
I’m simply tempted to accept most Ballard as SF simply on the grounds that it doesn’t really seem happy anywhere else.
I feel quite inadequate in even attempting to write some form of critique of Ballard’s work, particularly his short stories. His novels, although hard work in some cases, are often more accessible.
These are some of Ballard’s stories from the Early Nineteen Sixties (and one from ’59) which deal – to a greater or lesser degree – with Time.
The Day Of Forever (1967)
‘The Day of Forever’ is a strange tone-poem of piece, set on an earth in which Time, judged by the daily cycle of the world, has virtually stopped. In the town of Columbine Sept-Heures, it is constant twilight, a place where Halliday hope to dream of the woman in Delvaux’s surrealist painting, ‘The Echo’.
The story itself is a lush and atmospheric word-painting, detailed with some of Ballard’s trademark archetypes; the beautiful and enigmatic woman, the drained swimming pools and architecture unveiling geometries of hidden meaning.
‘The Prisoner of The Coral Deep’ is a brief and odd piece of romantic fantasy in which man finds a fossil-shell and on holding it to his ear hears sounds from the saurian ages and the scream of a man from trillions of years hence, held prisoner in time by an enigmatic woman.
‘Tomorrow is a Million Years’ is a rare weak story from Ballard, and one which is more standard in structure, with a twist ending.
‘The Man on the 99th Floor’, although a slight story, still shows Ballard’s obsession with architecture and a world slightly distanced from our own in a tale of murder and hypnosis.
‘The Waiting Grounds’ (the earliest story in 'The Day Of Forever') is one of his rare forays into pure SF, set in an observatory on a barren planet where alien monoliths reveal the secrets of creatures beyond Time and Space.
‘The Last World of Mr Goddard’ is a Dick-esque construction in which an elderly man seemingly has his entire local community in a box in a locked safe, attempting to control them as a kind of anonymous God during the evening whilst still walking amongst them during the day.
‘The Gentle Assassin’ is a rather cliched time-paradox story in which a scientist travels back in time and attempts to foil an assassination in order to save his young wife’s life, only to discover that his attempt results in her death.
‘The Sudden Afternoon’ is a well-written description of one consciousness slowly taking over another, but is otherwise unremarkable.
In ‘The Insane Ones’ an irrational dictator bans all therapy and psychiatric treatment, to the extent that preventing a suicide becomes a crime. It’s an interesting concept, but one which really to deserves to be explore more fully. The ex-psychiatrist is put in the awkward position of feeling himself compelled to treat a man whose desire is to kill the irrational dictator.
‘The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race’ is one of Ballard’s more memorable and controversial creations, heralding an obsession with the President, and indeed with other media icons, who turn up in later stories and novels.
jg ballard author of the drowned world is the most exciting discovery in british post-war fiction
these ten stories mostly mainstream sf/fantasy date from a relatively early period in his career – characterised by their wit and forcefulness of invention they serve as a perfect introduction to Ballard’s strange obsessional world (and also furnish an invaluable key to his later more experimental writing)
time and space become dislocated as in some lsd nightmare; a man watches and waits over the vast immortality-echoing horizons of an alien planet; a woman, enigmatic and beautiful, stands on a cliff, jewelled madonna of the booming sea below – out of the cryptic consciousness of modern man ballard creates landscapes as haunting and valid as Dali’s duned deserts or Max Ernst’s silently screaming forests
here is ballard beginning…’
blurb to 1967 panther edition
The Day of Forever • ss The Impossible Man, Berkley, 1966
Prisoner of the Coral Deep • ss Argosy (UK) Mar '64; New Worlds May '65
Tomorrow Is a Million Years • ss Argosy (UK) Oct '66
The Man on the 99th Floor • ss New Worlds Jul '62
The Waiting Grounds • nv New Worlds Nov '59
The Last World of Mr. Goddard • ss Science-Fantasy #43 '60
The Gentle Assassin • ss New Worlds Dec '61
The Sudden Afternoon • ss Fantastic Sep '63
The Insane Ones • ss Amazing Jan '62
The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race
• ss Ambit #29 '66; New Worlds Feb '67
There are few people who have mastered the art of the SF short story to the extent that they do it consistently and brilliantly. An early example was HG Wells. My contemporary favourite is Ian Watson, and between them was JG Ballard. It’s a tragedy that Ballard seems these days to have turned away from SF in the direction of mainstream and is now concentrating (one imagines exclusively) on novels.
There are those who debate whether Ballard’s work was ever Science Fiction. Certainly, it confuses booksellers, as some place Ballard’s work in the mainstream fiction section, some on the SF shelves, with a bet-hedging minority of shops placing selections in both camps.
Certainly works like ‘The Crystal World’ which has certain scientific and fantastic elements within it, can be classed as SF while ‘Crash’ (although listed in Pringle’s ‘100 best SF Novels’) is rather more difficult to place within an SF context.
I’m simply tempted to accept most Ballard as SF simply on the grounds that it doesn’t really seem happy anywhere else.
I feel quite inadequate in even attempting to write some form of critique of Ballard’s work, particularly his short stories. His novels, although hard work in some cases, are often more accessible.
These are some of Ballard’s stories from the Early Nineteen Sixties (and one from ’59) which deal – to a greater or lesser degree – with Time.
The Day Of Forever (1967)
‘The Day of Forever’ is a strange tone-poem of piece, set on an earth in which Time, judged by the daily cycle of the world, has virtually stopped. In the town of Columbine Sept-Heures, it is constant twilight, a place where Halliday hope to dream of the woman in Delvaux’s surrealist painting, ‘The Echo’.
The story itself is a lush and atmospheric word-painting, detailed with some of Ballard’s trademark archetypes; the beautiful and enigmatic woman, the drained swimming pools and architecture unveiling geometries of hidden meaning.
‘The Prisoner of The Coral Deep’ is a brief and odd piece of romantic fantasy in which man finds a fossil-shell and on holding it to his ear hears sounds from the saurian ages and the scream of a man from trillions of years hence, held prisoner in time by an enigmatic woman.
‘Tomorrow is a Million Years’ is a rare weak story from Ballard, and one which is more standard in structure, with a twist ending.
‘The Man on the 99th Floor’, although a slight story, still shows Ballard’s obsession with architecture and a world slightly distanced from our own in a tale of murder and hypnosis.
‘The Waiting Grounds’ (the earliest story in 'The Day Of Forever') is one of his rare forays into pure SF, set in an observatory on a barren planet where alien monoliths reveal the secrets of creatures beyond Time and Space.
‘The Last World of Mr Goddard’ is a Dick-esque construction in which an elderly man seemingly has his entire local community in a box in a locked safe, attempting to control them as a kind of anonymous God during the evening whilst still walking amongst them during the day.
‘The Gentle Assassin’ is a rather cliched time-paradox story in which a scientist travels back in time and attempts to foil an assassination in order to save his young wife’s life, only to discover that his attempt results in her death.
‘The Sudden Afternoon’ is a well-written description of one consciousness slowly taking over another, but is otherwise unremarkable.
In ‘The Insane Ones’ an irrational dictator bans all therapy and psychiatric treatment, to the extent that preventing a suicide becomes a crime. It’s an interesting concept, but one which really to deserves to be explore more fully. The ex-psychiatrist is put in the awkward position of feeling himself compelled to treat a man whose desire is to kill the irrational dictator.
‘The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race’ is one of Ballard’s more memorable and controversial creations, heralding an obsession with the President, and indeed with other media icons, who turn up in later stories and novels.
October 11, 2022
This is a collection of 10 short stories by British science-fiction writer J.G. Ballard. In his trademark way, he writes mostly about surreal dystopias populated by odd characters with their own bizarre charm, but they are so similar that they blend into each other by the end of the volume and it’s hard to remember many specific details. I can say I enjoyed it while I read it but there was nothing ground-breaking here.
June 4, 2023
Not great writing, but some interesting ideas and stories, usually with a twist in the tale; in typical Ballardian style often involving something dystopian.
I especially liked the notion of psychiatry and psychotherapy bring outlawed. The mentally distressed of all flavours just have to get on with it...
I especially liked the notion of psychiatry and psychotherapy bring outlawed. The mentally distressed of all flavours just have to get on with it...
January 26, 2024
Some interesting stories, some very typically Ballardian, full of abandoned towns, beaches and deserts, and mysterious, raven-haired women.
Some very dated in terms of their extrapolations from late '60s concerns (psychoanalysis, the Vietnam war), others more timeless (I especially liked the proto-2001 psychedelia of The Waiting Grounds).
Some very dated in terms of their extrapolations from late '60s concerns (psychoanalysis, the Vietnam war), others more timeless (I especially liked the proto-2001 psychedelia of The Waiting Grounds).
January 26, 2019
Great short story collection. Particularly loved 'The Waiting Grounds'.
October 11, 2022
Somewhat closer to conventional SF territory than other Ballard collections from the era. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/202...
November 4, 2023
Not a great collection, but then it is Ballard after all
July 22, 2024
Subtle science-fiction twists on 1960s contemporary life, this was well written and interesting. I would certainly read more from this author.
October 20, 2025
Possibly the best collection of short stories I've read. Tight, well paced, interesting.
September 19, 2019
"Archbishops wearing fantastic mitre."
October 19, 2016
On the back there is a quote from Kingsley Amis "JG Ballard is one of the brightest new stars in post-war ficition" and the copyright page gives a date of 1967.
I enjoyed this book but I think it showed its age. This was both a plus and a minus.
The plus is high quality editing and a decent standard of English. The writing kept to the basic rules of English grammar. There was no misuse of words, slang phraseology or obscure sentence structure.
The minus was that some of the stories though well written lacked a certain novelty. I'm sure they were original when written but over 40 years later the plot lines are well used and unsurprising.
Another thing to note is that Ballard seems to be fond of North Africa and desert landscapes. So am I and as a result I enjoyed these settings, you may not.
If you are looking for modern innovative scifi this is probably not the book for you but on the other hand if you want to enjoy a solid scifi classic there are some gems in this collection.
I enjoyed this book but I think it showed its age. This was both a plus and a minus.
The plus is high quality editing and a decent standard of English. The writing kept to the basic rules of English grammar. There was no misuse of words, slang phraseology or obscure sentence structure.
The minus was that some of the stories though well written lacked a certain novelty. I'm sure they were original when written but over 40 years later the plot lines are well used and unsurprising.
Another thing to note is that Ballard seems to be fond of North Africa and desert landscapes. So am I and as a result I enjoyed these settings, you may not.
If you are looking for modern innovative scifi this is probably not the book for you but on the other hand if you want to enjoy a solid scifi classic there are some gems in this collection.
May 2, 2016
One of those random finds at a charity book sale that could have been a gem but ultimately disappointed. Lots of ideas for books he didn't write rather than genuine short stories, but still interesting diversion
August 25, 2010
Awesome!
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews