Science Fiction: The Short Stuff discussion

"The Voices of Time" is a novelette by J.G. Ballard that was first published in the October 1960 issue of New Worlds, a magazine known for ushering in a new type of science fiction knows as the New Wave of the 1960s. Examples tend to de-emphasize plot and instead try experiments in narrative structure and methods. This novelette is classified as dystopian.

I look forward to seeing what is up with this story. I've yet to read any Ballard I can recall. This story has been anthologized many, many times.

I've finished listening to the novelette, and all the rest apparently of Ballard's short work in the audiobook edition of The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard, which IMO is an excellent collection with excellent narration.

The novelette is intensely interesting but also quite pessimistic. As Dan mentions in his intro to the story, there is not much of a plot to it, it seems to me to be mainly a mood piece. I expect I'll have more to say about the story, once I've thought about it for awhile longer.

One interesting quote from Ballard in an interview in 1977 is this:
If I were asked to pick one piece of fiction to represent my entire output of 7 novels and 92 short stories it would be ‘The Voices of Time’, not because it is the best (I leave that for the reader to judge), but because it contains almost all the themes of my writing — the sense of isolation within the infinite time and space of the universe, the biological fantasies and the attempt to read the complex codes represented by drained swimming pools and abandoned airfields, and above all the determination to break out of a deepening psychological entropy and make some kind of private peace with the unseen powers of the universe.

Thanks - fascinating quote.

I agree that it was rather a gloomy story but it was different and well put together and well worth reading . I read a couple more from the collection but found them rather in the same downbeat theme so stopped at this point.

It was a gloomy read with a depressing subject matter. He's good at creating atmosphere, but in this case the atmosphere was intense and weird(all those mutations).

I wonder why it is said this story is weak in plot. I found one easily enough. Because of two genes in humanity's DNA most of us are headed for some form of inevitable entropy, causing us to sleep more and more until we die from lethargy.

I have now read my first Ballard story. Color me unimpressed. This is my least favorite story we have read in the group so far. Still, I'm giving it a generous two stars because even though the impossible plot was based on a bad scientific premise, there was nothing wrong with the writing style, per se. Still, not my cup of tea at all. I drink coffee instead and usually read stories that have some hope and a worthwhile point.