The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard

The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard

First published in 1978, this collection of nineteen of J. G. Ballard's best short stories is as timely and informed as ever. This collection includes “The Garden of Time,” the inspiration for the 2024 Met Gala–fashion’s biggest night. His tales of the human psyche and its relationship to nature and technology, as viewed through a strong microscope, were eerily prescient and now provide greater perspective on our computer-dominated culture. Ballard's voice and vision have long served as a font of inspiration for today's cyber-punks, the authors and futurists who brought the information age into the mainstream. Praise for The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard : “A visionary in both style and substance . . .The literary equivalent of Salvador Dali or Max Ernst.” ― The Washington Post Book World “A writer of enormous inventive powers. Ballard has, like Calvino, a remarkable gift for filling the empty, deprived spaces of modern life with the invisible cities and the wonder worlds of the imagination.” ― Malcolm Bradbury, The New York Times Book Review “Complex, obsessive, frequently poetic, and always disquieting chronicles of nature rebelling against humans, of the survival of barbarism in a world of mechanical efficieny, of entropy, anomie, breakdown, ruin . . . The blasted landscapes that his characters inhabit are both external settings and states of mind.” ― Luc Sante J. G. Ballard is the author of numerous books, including Empire of the Sun , the underground classic Crash , The Kindness of Women , and Super-Cannes . He is revered as one of the most important writers of fiction to address the consequences of twentieth-century technology. He lives in England. Anthony Burgess (1917-1993) was born in Manchester and educated at Xavierian College and Manchester University. He spent six years in the army during World War II become becoming a schoolmaster and a colonial education officer in Malaya and Brunei. After the success of his Malayan Trilogy , he became a full-time writer in 1959. He achieved a worldwide reputation as one of the leading novelists of his day, and one of the most versatile. He wrote criticism, stage plays, translations and a Broadway musical. He also composed more than 150 musical works, including a piano concerto, a violin concert for Yehudi Menuhin and a symphony. His books have been published all over the world and include A Clockwork Orange, Shakespeare, the Complete Enderby, Nothing Like the Sun, A Dead Man in Deptford, Earthly Powers and Little Wilson and Big God. He also wrote reams of journalism in his role as long-time literary critic of The Observer and The Guardian. The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard By J. G. Ballard Picador Copyright © 1978 J. G. Ballard All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-312-27844-1 Contents Title Page, Copyright Notice, Introduction, The Concentration City, Manhole 69, Chronopolis, The Voices of Time, Deep End, The Overloaded Man, Billennium, The Garden of Time, Thirteen for Centaurus, The Subliminal Man, The Cage of Sand, End Game, The Drowned Giant, The Terminal Beach, The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D, The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill, Motor Race, The Atrocity Exhibition, Plan for the Assassination of Jacqueline Kennedy, Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan, By the Same Author, Copyright, CHAPTER 1 The Concentration City Noon talk on Millionth Street: "Sorry, these are the West millions. You want 9775335th East." "Dollar five a cubic foot? Sell!" "Take a westbound express to 495th Avenue, cross over to a Redline elevator and go up a thousand levels to Plaza Terminal. Carry on south from there and you'll find it between 568th Avenue and 422nd Street." "There's a cave-in down at KEN county! Fifty blocks by twenty by thirty levels." "Listen to this — 'PYROS STAGE MASS BREAKOUT! FIRE POLICE CORDON BAY COUNTY!'" "It's a beautiful counter. Detects up to .005 percent monoxide. Cost me three hundred dollars." "Have you seen those new intercity sleepers? Takes only ten minutes to go up three thousand levels!" "Ninety cents a foot? Buy!" * * * "You say the idea came to you in a dream?" the voice jabbed out. "You're sure no one else gave it to you?" "No," M. said flatly. A couple of feet away from him a spot lamp threw a cone of dirty yellow light into his face. He dropped his eyes from the glare and waited as the sergeant paced over to his desk, tapped his fingers on the edge, and swung around on him again. "You talked it over with your friends?" "Only the first theory," M. explained quietly. "About the possibility of flight." "But you told me the other theory was more important. Why keep it quiet from them?" M. hesitated. Outside somewhere a trolley shunted and clanged along the elevated. "I was afraid they wouldn't understand what I meant." The sergeant laughed sourly. "You mean they would have thought you really were crazy?" M. shifted uncomfortab