A User's Guide to the Millennium: Essays and Reviews

by J.G. Ballard

Over the course of his career, J.G. Ballard has revealed hidden truths about the modern world. The essays, reviews, and ruminations gathered here—spanning the breadth of this long career—approach reality with the same sharp prose and sharper vision that distinguish his fiction. Ballard's fascination for and fixation upon this century take him from Mickey Mouse to Salvador Dali, from Los Angeles to Shanghai, from William Burroughs to Winnie the Pooh, from the future to today.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Cultural, British Literature, Criticism, 20th Century, Audiobook

320 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1996

About the author

James 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".

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

A User's Guide to the Millennium - Here he is, one of the stars of twentieth century literature, J. G. Ballard, writing on topics ranging from Star Wars to Howard Hughes, from Salvador Dali to Richard Feynman, from Coco-Cola to Joseph Conrad. And here you go, direct quotes from the essays in this collection, a baker's dozen, coupled with my own comments. Bon Appétit!

ON SCIENCE FICTION
"One reason why the Apollo moon-landings failed to touch our imagination is that science fiction got there first, just as it has anticipated so much in our lives." ---------- Areas of the science fiction imagination I find infinitely fascinating: 1) exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) could impact human interactions, human emotions and human knowledge (for example, men and women falling in love or having sex with androids), 2) projecting how we humans would communicate with other intelligent lifeforms on other planets, 3) the powerful influence of yet to be discovered synthetic drugs to expand consciousness or provide intense human pleasure, 4) what society and culture might look like following a planet-wide catastrophe such as drastic climate change or nuclear war.

"One can almost make the case that science fiction, far from being a disreputable minor genre, in fact constitutes the strongest literary tradition of the twentieth century, and may well be its authentic literature." ---------- J. G. underscores science fiction’s central position by noting that beginning in the twentieth century and accelerating year by year, what’s important in people’s lives has more to do with technology and the future than with the past. To gage the verity of this, you can look at your own life: how central is technology to your work and leisure, your education and interaction with friends and family?

"The biggest developments of the immediate future will take place, not on the Moon or Mars, but on Earth, and it is inner space, not outer, that needs to be explored. The only truly alien planet is Earth." ---------- This undoubtedly accounts for the author’s own brand of science fiction; instead of writing about colonists on the Red Planet, we have books like High-Rise where affluent residents under the influence of future architecture and technologies turn to bizarre forms of violence. A prime question: how will future social and cultural arrangements effect our very human nature, including different aspects of the human psyche. I, myself, think the biggest social shift in the future will be the abandoning of the single-family unit in favor of communes.

ON THE CAR
"What is the real significance in our lives of this huge metallized dream? Is the car, in more sense than one, taking us for a ride?" --------- The car is such a provocative subject. One aspect of the influence of the automobile is explored in his novel Crash, adopted for film by David Cronenberg. There's no question as to the central spot cars play in the US - to be a true American, one drives a car. But what about pollution? What about all the noise and filth? What about all the death and injury and destruction? Tsk, tsk - such un-American questions. The corporate interests make sure men and women need not bother their heads with such concerns.

ON ANDY WARHOL
"In many ways Warhol is the Walt Disney of the amphetamine age. In his silk-screen images there is the same childlike retelling of the great fairy-tales of our time, the mythic lives of Elvis and Marilyn, Liz and Jackie. --------- Our British man of letters views Warhol as THE artist of the American world of celebrities and popular culture, which is entirely accurate, no doubt. However, and this is the critical point for anybody engaged with the arts: Andy Warhol's art ranges from the excellent to the mediocre to the weak. We must engage with each work and judge what we see one at a time. I recall viewing two Andy Warhol silkscreens in a downtown NYC gallery - the power and magnificence of these pieces was enough to almost put me on my knees.

ON THE CULTURE OF THE COMIC STRIP
"The Star Wars series, Sylvester Stallone's entire career, and recent movies such as Die Hard and Total Recall are little more than imitation comic strips, patterned on the same compensation fantasies and paranoid view of the world." --------- This is one big reason I no longer watch television or go to see Hollywood movies - all of those productions strike me as a colossal extension of comic book clichés.

ON MAX ERNST'S THE ELEPHANT OF CELEBES
"Ernst's wise machine, hot cauldron of time and myth, is the benign deity of inner space." ---------- I suspect J. G. Ballard fans can detect a great deal in common between the surreal art of Max Ernst and a number of the author's tales, most notably The Crystal World.

ON HENRY MILLER
"I can still remember reading Tropic of Cancer when I first went to Paris after the war, and being stunned by the no-nonsense frankness of Miller's language and by the novel's sheer zest and attack." --------- I find it astounding that Ballard has such high praise for Henry Miller since the British author is completely opposite Miller, at least temperamentally. Also, as Ballard acknowledges, Miller had to wait until his was a bit older to begin his serious writing and for good reason: his one and only literary subject was himself.

ON NATHANAEL WEST
"Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust, first published in 1939, remains the best of the Hollywood novels, a nightmare vision of humanity destroyed by its obsession with film." --------- Ballard's admiration of Nathanael West is understandable since he himself comprehended the power of Hollywood and incorporated such an understanding in novels such as Millennium People and Cocaine Nights.

ON WILLIAM BURROUGHS
"Far from being an arbitrary stunt, Burroughs' cut-in method is thus seen as the most appropriate technique for this marriage of opposites, as well as underlining the role of recurrent images in all communication, fixed at the points of contact in the webs of language linking everything in our lives, from nostalgic reveries of 'invisible passenger took my hands in dawn sleep of water music - Broken towers intersect cigarette smoke memory of each other' to sinister bureaucratic memos and medicalese." ---------- It truly is amazing how an entire range of outstanding writers such as Norman Mailer, Martin Amis, Thomas M. Disch, and J. G. Ballard have judged Il hombre invisible among the very top writers in the twentieth century.

"Hitman for the apocalypse in his trench coat and snap-brim fedora, William Burroughs steps out of his life and into his fiction like a secret agent charged with the demolition of all bourgeois values." --------- J. G. calls on his keen skills with language and image in reviewing the work of Benzodiazepine Bill.

ON GRAHAM GREENE
"I first began to read Graham Greene in the mid-1950s and will never forget the sense of liberation his novels gave me." ---------- Undoubtedly Ballard found Greene an enormous influence, particularly appreciating how Greene expanded his literary voice far from the shores of England. J. G. has pointed remarks about the stultifying results when British authors remain within the confines of English culture.

ON BLUE VELVET
Blue Velvet is, for me, the best film of the 1980s - surreal, voyeuristic, subversive and even a little corrupt in its manipulation of the audience." ----------- This is but one of the films Ballard writes about in the collection, a book I highly recommend for all connoisseurs of literature.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ballard is a randy old goat who writes elegantly and thinks future civilizations will remember us by our motorway flyovers. He doesn't say this in an irritating "satirical" Bill Bryson/David Brooks way, he actually thinks it, and he's utterly convincing.

It's amazing, when I look at the shit that passes for commentary in the British press 99% of the time, that most of the essays in this book originally appeared in newspapers. The stuff on classic Hollywood and Sci-Fi is great. And although, by the time most of the essays were published, he was already a balding, middle-aged man, he's never embarrassed, or embarrassing, when he writes about sex, which he does all the time, because he's a randy old goat who loves motorways and airports and cars.

I called him up once at his Shepperton home (his number's in the phone book) when I worked at his local rag. He answered the phone and I asked him for an interview. He paused for a long time and then said, in a very polite voice, "I think I shall have to decline." Which is a pretty classy, funny way of saying "no," I think.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, insightful, witty, well written collection of 90 short pieces from magazines and newspapers over the years 1962 to 1995. His non fiction book reviews usually provide a good summary of the subject matter, including interesting information, with astute observations on what he thinks of the book. Personalities he writes about include Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Howard Hughes, Albert Einstein, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, William Burroughs, Joseph Conrad, Nathanael West, Graham Greene and Henry Miller. The book ends with a chapter on revisiting Shanghai, China, and about his time in Shanghai during the 1930s and 1940s.

Here are a couple of quotes from the book:
'One reason why the Apollo moon landings failed to touch our imagination is that science fiction got there first, just as it has anticipated so much in our lives'
'Nathanael West's 'The Day of the Locust', first published in 1939, remains the best of the Hollywood novels, a nightmare vision of humanity destroyed by its obsession with film.'

J.G. Ballard fans should find this book a very worthwhile read.

This book was first published in 1996.

[Ignacio · Rating 3 out of 5]

El libro me ha gustado bastante. Es el típico popurrí donde se juntan textos de diarios (The Guardian), semanarios (Sunday Magazine) o revistas (New Statesman o New Worlds). Y hay de todo, desde reseñas de biografías (Nancy Regan, Elvis, Marqués de Sade) ensayos o, incluso, películas, pasando por alguna columna de opinión (las de New Worlds están muy bien) y notas autobiográficas; las más interesantes, cómo no, sobre su vida en Shepperton, su infancia en Shanghái​ y un viaje de vuelta que hizo a principios de los 90 para reencontrarse con los paisajes de su niñez, muchos de los cuales se han acabado convirtiendo en la marca Ballard. Y aunque es tan diverso que parte se lee en diagonal, si interesa Ballard merece mucho la pena porque es su mirada la que se impone sobre el texto, y eso supone que no estamos ante vulgares encargos sino visiones de porciones del mundo a través de los ojos del autor clarividente a la hora de entender las dinámicas entre sociedad, tecnología e individuo.

Además para el lector de ciencia ficción hay una serie de textos excepcionales. Tres o cuatro que se sienten como el manifiesto de cómo concebía el género, donde explica con amplitud su predilección por la exploración del espacio interior, la experimentación formal o por qué una novela como Crash es para él cf. Y después hay algunas reseñas fantásticas, como la de Billion Year Spree (ey, Brian, fuiste demasiado bienqueda en ese libro XD) y la caña que mete a Kingsley Amis por La edad de oro de la ciencia ficción.

[Stephen Curran · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 20th century feels like a very long time ago. JG Ballard's occasional playful imaginings of the future in this collection of (in the main) book reviews, understandably fail to predict the dominance of the internet, but manage to get things half right by suggesting that the steering wheel in cars might one day be replaced by a dial telephone and a copy of the Yellow Pages.

That's not to say that he isn't astute. Far from it. Ballard is one of the few writers who's unique and beautifully expressed world view skews and infects my own as I read his pages. Our culture, for him, is a collection of subconscious death wishes, where the motorway is the key image of the era, and society is as easily dismantled as a stage set. Sometimes I think he's a madman. Sometimes I think he simply sees things more clearly than the rest of us. The more I read him, the more I nod my head in agreement.

[Brett Warnke · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hilarious and dark journey through the second half of the twentieth century. Ballard’s merry nihilism lightens my grim worries about politics and makes the case for a life of the imagination. Ballard has such a fascinating range: an acute critic of science fiction as well as contemporary pieties and wholesome myths like Disney (an FBI fink) and Coca Cola, the true victor of the Cold War. There are also haunting passages about his past, scenes of his youthful home in Shanghai as well as essays on Sade, Burroughs, Dali, the surrealists, and new look at Hitler’s propagandistic and paranoid legacy. Read all of Ballard and laugh and delight as we head to civilization’s technological apotheosis (or funeral).

[Byron 'Giggsy' Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

most of these were short book reviews (2.5 pages or so) where Ballard spends less time reviewing the book than just adding his own observations to the topic, but then never having the space to develop any of his thoughts

[Charles Dee Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are mostly short reviews written for a variety of London daily papers. The choice of review material is classic Ballard -- biographies of Nancy Reagan , Henry Miller, and the Emperor Hirohito; books on surrealism, war photography, and the Golden Age of science fiction; a review of a mail-order sex manual. There are also essays on some favored painters and review of Star Wars titled Hobbits in Space. Excellent bedtime reading.

[Ben Lovegrove · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection of Ballard's essays and articles for magazines. They are interesting because they are quite candid, and there are rare film reviews and book reviews from newspapers. It's a very comprehensive overview of his sensibility and well worth checking out to find out more about his life and his interests.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ballard's reviews and essays, short though most of them are, are filled with the same genius that populates his fiction, and an incisive wit beyond compare. Quite possibly the best analyst of the postmodern condition.

[Al · Rating 4 out of 5]

In modern alt-literature, there are two names that tower above everyone else- William S Buroughs and Ballard.

So regardless of what I think of him, I have to acknowledge the debt that stuff I like owes to him. For starters, I will give you Joy Division, David Cronenberg, and Grant Morrison, to name three.
The guy is so influential his name is an adjective. The idea of dystopia, post apocalyptic misery- of industry and technology making life unbearable- hey right down my alley.

The truth is though that while Burroughs seized me immediately, Ballard generally seems more difficult for me to grab.

I have read a couple of his fiction works- one at the beginning and one near the end of his career, and I can't say either did much for me.

Ballard did release a collection of mostly magazine articles of his called A User's Guide to the Millenium. The title is misleading - it's mostly book reviews, thoughts about books, musings on cience fiction, and an otherwise assortment of things Ballard has been paid to write about.

Ballard makes an interesting essayist though, and this (non-fiction) book is one I could (and do) pick up from time to time.

I have read or at least perused some of those late 60s and early 70s writings that made Ballard the name he is (as well as some short stories), and if they may not quite set my world on fire, I have to admit they are unlike anything else.

In short, Ballard's the guy who wrote Why I Want to F--k Ronald Reagan and that was in 1967. Respect.

[John Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Users Guide to the Millennium by J.G. Ballard is an absolute treasure chest for anyone interested in 20th century pop culture. It's a collection of essays and reviews that spans 30+ years, culled from a wide range of magazines and covers such subjects as art, history, science, cinema and science fiction and such personalities and icons as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Dali, William Burroughs, Howard Hughes, Einstein, Warhol, Henry Miller, the list goes on.

Most of the pieces are short but pack a punch. Brilliant observations, a wicked turn of phrase and loaded with information, history and little-known facts, this gem has the effect of whetting your appetite for more. I, for one, will be tracking down books on various of the subjects and people explored in this volume.

One might think that a hotch-potch collection like this can't have anything like a cohesive quality to it, but, more than anything else, the sheer breath of the canvas painted and the uniquely skewed view of Ballard gives us an inside look at the mind of the writer. Of particular interest are the autobiographical essays which serve as the core of the book and paint a vivid picture of Shanghai in the 30's and 40's.

Highly recommended.

[MichaelK · Rating 3 out of 5]

The essays and reviews collected here span many decades and topics. I came to this shortly after reading the book of Ballard's interviews (Extreme Metaphors), which I found more enjoyable overall. While some of the essays interested me and held my attention, many were a slog to get through, even though they were generally only a few pages long. The book reviews are mostly unmemorable and unstylish, coming across as generic ones which could have been written by any newspaper book reviewer or bookblogger. This isn't to say they are bad, just nothing special. Ballard's distinctive outlook and intelligence is more forceful and compelling in his interviews than these essays; he was a better conversationalist than essayist.

This collection does of course have it's highlights - a review of Hitler's 'Mein Kampf', Ballard's negative review of the first Star Wars film ('Hobbits in Space?'), the science fiction essays, and the final autobiographical piece - most of which can be read for free online. I cannot really recommend this collection except to a die hard Ballard fan.

[The Final Song ❀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

From 1962 to 1995 this book collects little essays, musing and assorted texts from J.G Ballard.
At first glance it appears really fragmented commenting on things so different, from Coca Cola to Mein Kampf.
But i think that it really reflects the state of the 20 century and the current one too.
Written in a way that is never a chore to read, even when he wrote constantly about the same topics.

I really enjoyed his reflection on science fiction, and what path should have taken, i wonder if that happen. (probably no, seeing that there is still star wars movies being made)

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was far more interesting than I thought it would be. I’d read most of the works he critiqued. That helped.

[Connor York · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ballard's writing has often been described as cynical. However, the label of cynic is unfair to Ballard, as cynicism seems to be associated with the surface level of criticism. Although Ballard's works(particularly his fiction) have a bitterness towards modern society and technology, there is an opacity to Ballard's critiques that give his art depth, as demonstrated in this essay collection.

The only Ballard I read previously was Crash, with its intentionally droning prose and frank messaging. My expectation of Ballard's essays was more or less a transposition of the style of Crash onto nonfiction topics. What I found instead was the pragmatism of his prose, with every line conveying such detail while not remaining too sparse. The formatting was also surprising with the majority of the collection consisting of Ballard's reviews of books with exceedingly diverse subject matters. There are reviews of formal fiction like The Day of The Locust, biographies of Albert Einstein and Nancy Reagan, and even nonfiction works exploring the history of Coca-Cola. Interspersed between reviews of the works of Joyce and and a book extolling the merits of skinny-dipping, Ballard includes traditional essays with musings on Edward Hopper and an exploration of his childhood in a Shanghai internment camp.

The formatting compliments Ballard's style as it allows him to give his thoughts on almost anything. At one point he does just that, much in the style of a dictionary, giving rapid fire interpretations of the X-Ray, cybernetics, furniture, and International Standard Time. Despite the variety of subjects, the transitions never feel choppy with Ballard's unique voice acting as connective tissue. There are always typical Ballardian tropes with a wariness towards technology and the excess of society in the 20th century. But Ballard is more than just a cynic, to me he's a deconstuctivist. His writings on celebrity biographies deconstruct pop culture mythos. His writing on science fiction deconstruct the genre, exposing the vanity of most space age works of sci fi. Ballard even deconstructs his career revealing the unconscious influence of his childhood in Shanghai on works like The Drowning World. Everything is intentional with Ballard. The memo and the invoice are not just functional, they're art. The car is not transportation, it's freedom. A French apartment complex is not a building, it's an insight into the future of humanity's isolation. The title of the collection is apt as Ballard provides a personalized guide to the 20th century.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of Ballard’s reviews, articles and essays over a 30 year period from the sixties to the nineties, this is a book to dip into rather than read in one go.

Perceptive, honest and at time blackly humorous, Ballard shows here why he was one of the greatest post-war writers Britain produced. Hugely knowledgeable his writings range across a broad range of subject matter, from political figures, pop culture and science-fiction to history and snippets of autobiography. All of it is immensely readable and his wit and intelligence shines through.

This may be a good introduction to Ballard’s world view for those that have not yet read him. And for those that have, this is a great reminder of his skill as a writer.

[J K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful, prescient and prophetic. I wish he was still around today, many magazines and other media would benefit from his vast understanding of how things are, were, and could even be.

Had a great time dipping into each essay, and review, absorbing it. His speculative work led to the realisation that 'he got that prediction about 75-90% right...' especially on the space race, and how we'd analyse ourselves constantly in public.

I would have loved to read his take on Elon Musk. I'm fairly sure social media would have driven him crazy...

[vincent alexis ☆ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 rounding down. i've tried to get into JG Ballard before, but i got the feeling that while he had interesting things to say, they weren't being expressed to my satisfaction in novels where Ballard is tasked with having not just a concept, but a plot and characters. his nonfiction works seem to clear up this problem. while I don't agree with everything Ballard has to say, he has a truly picturesque way of putting things. I enjoyed his musings on the future of the automobile, which seem to predict the rise of self-driving cars, although not as quickly as he guessed.

[T.E. Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only for Ballard fans. These essays are now quite dated.

[Antonio Vena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alcuni articoli belli, altri fantastiche pietre miliari intellettuali (ovvero metafore estreme) e altri ancora non particolarmente ispirati.
In ogni caso un libro da avere e leggere.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some astute insights and a few laugh out loud moments. The world through his eyes must be exhausting but this brief view is at times exhilarating.

[Boyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't in good conscience give this book a 5: it's a baggy miscellany, which is something people in my business (publishing) are taught to frown upon. Misshapen, little chance of review attention, no particular audience, etc., etc., etc. I seriously dug it.

Yes, okay, it's mostly book (and a few film) reviews, rather vaguely broken out by category ("Writers" "The Visual World," "Science," etc.), along with some even more general stuff filed under "In General." Sounds bad. It's not: it's a great and idiosyncratic cruise through (mostly) the last three decades of the twentieth century, with a couple of personal detours into World War II-era Shanghai, when Ballard, his parents, and his little sister were confined together by the Japanese in one small room for nearly three years. The writing is pure Ballard, which would be more than enough for me even if he were writing about his collection of rusted sardine cans.

The hook here isn't really the material, but rather its range and the way it's processed and commented upon. Ballard doesn't spend much time dallying with the Masters of 20th Century Fiction. Yes, there's Thomas Wolfe and Fitzgerald, Vonnegut and Burroughs (largely second-hand, via their biographies), but most of the books he writes about are odds and ends of nonfiction that provide springboards to something he wants to talk about.

Who'll you find here? Nancy Reagan (as crudely dismembered and presented for inspection by "chainsaw biographer" Kitty Kelley); Richard Feynman; Walt Disney; Freud; Docs Papa and Baby; Hitler and MEIN KAMPF paired with Joyce and ULYSSES; Coca-Cola; a guy who wrote earnest and romantic marriage manuals in the 50s; STAR WARS (dismissed as "Hobbits in Space"); the depraved last empress of China, Tzu Hsi; Salvador Dali...you get the picture. Except it's more like a jigsaw puzzle.

Can one tell anything about someone from a list of his or her favorite books? Ballard's are Hemingway's COLLECTED STORIES; West's DAY OF THE LOCUSTS; THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER; THE ANNOTATED ALICE; NAKED LUNCH; Baudrillard's AMERICA; THE SECRET LIFE OF SALVADOR DALI (by Dali); THE WORLD THROUGH BLUNTED SIGHT (Patrick Trevor-Roper); the Los Angeles Yellow Pages; and THE BLACK BOX, a collection of cockpit recorder transcripts, "not all of fatal crashes." *You* be the judge.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

J.G. Ballard is always provocative and is a hell of a writer. In this collection of essays, he is strongest in his writings of his native Shanghai, most amusing (and often wrong-headed) in his writing on other writers (I have to assume it is a generational thing - his adoration of William Burroughs is something that I once agreed with, but now find a bit juvenile, and his view of the novel, based, as it is on the idea that Burroughs's approach is still the model of the novel of the future is downright daft), and thoroughly thought-provoking on his ruminations on the space age and the automobile (and mostly right on both accounts).

[Ted Laderas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic short essays that turn your viewpoint on its head...the title essay describes 10 influential surrealist sci fi movies, although some (like Douglas Trumbull's "Silent Running") are a bit dated and painful to watch. Mostly I'm grateful to this book for introducing me to Godard's "Alphaville" - a no budget sci fi film that fuses ultramodern Paris locales with gumshoe detectives and a paranoid computer named alpha-60 who controls the planet.

A good critic can open a reader's eyes to subtleties that might've been missed - in the case of Ballard, he can show you the seamy underbelly of nearly any kind of art....eye opening.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Occasionally a bit stuffy and/or obscure (perhaps it would read differently to an native of England) but easily more than half the very short essays were entertaining and quite a few were thought provoking. One nice thing about a book of such short essays (most are less than 3 pages) is that there is less guilt when you find yourself skipping ahead to the next one after an opening paragraph or two doesn't engage your interest.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting thought by Ballard (don't have the book w me so I can't quote): Who in literature does the young Adolf Hitler more closely resemble than his seeming enemy, the 20th century everyman Leopold Bloom (of Ulysses), Jew, half-educated, wandering the streets of his city, emasculated and angry?

[Kent Winward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ballard's essays and reviews are hit and miss as any collection like this tends to be. Yet, the authorial voice I find so compelling in his fiction shines through and illuminates enough diverse topics to make this an enjoyable, if fractured and scattered, read.