The Complete Short Stories: Volume 1
This first volume in a two volume collection of the acclaimed short stories by the author of "Empire of the Sun", "Crash", "Cocaine Nights" and "Super-Cannes" – regarded by many as Britain's No. 1 living fiction writer. With sixteen novels over four decades – from "The Drowned World" in 1962 to his highly acclaimed "Super-Cannes" in 2000 – J. G. Ballard is firmly established as one of Britain's most celebrated and original novelists. For all that time he has also written short stories; in fact, many people consider that he is at his best in the short-story format.
These highly influential stories have appeared in magazines such as "New Worlds", "Amazing Stories" and "Interzone", and in several separate collections, including "The Voices of Time", "The Terminal Beach", "The Day of Forever", "The Venus Hunters", "The Disaster Area", "Vermilion Sands", "Low-Flying Aircraft", "Myths of the Near Future" and "War Fever". Set out in the order in which they were originally published, these stories provide an unprecedented opportunity to review the career of one of Britain's greatest writers.
Contents:
- Prima Belladonna
- Escapement
- The Concentration City
- Venus Smiles
- Manhole 69
- Track 12
- The Waiting Grounds
- Now: Zero
- The Sound-Sweep
- Zone of Terror
- Chronopolis
- The Voices of Time
- The Last World of Mr Goddard
- Studio 5, The Stars
- Deep End
- The Overloaded Man
- Mr F. is Mr F.
- Billennium
- The Gentle Assassin
- The Insane Ones
- The Garden of Time
- The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista
- Thirteen to Centaurus
- Passport to Eternity
- The Cage of Sound
- The Watch-Towers
- The Singing Statues
- The Man on the 99th Floor
- The Subliminal Man
- The Reptile Enclosure
- A Question of Re-Entry
- The Time Tombs
- Now Wakes the Sea
- The Venus Hunters
- End-Game
- Minus One
- The Sudden Afternoon
- The Screen Game
- Time of Passage
J. G. Ballard
James Graham Ballard (1930–2009) was a British novelist and short story writer who was a prominent part of the New Wave in science fiction in the mid- to late-1960s and whose work frequently focused on dystopian themes.
J. G. Ballard's best known books are the controversial novel Crash, an exploration of sexual fetishism connected to automobile accidents, and the semi-autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun, about his childhood internment by the Japanese during World War II after the invasion and conquest of Shanghai, where Ballard was born in the International Settlement. Both books were adapted into films, by David Cronenberg and Stephen Spielberg respectively.