The Complete Short Stories. Vol. 2 (v. 2)

1742 Pages·2006·4.84 MB·English

by  J. G. Ballard

J.G. Ballard
The Complete Short Stories
For the first time in one volume, the complete collected short stories by the
author of Empire of the Sun 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
the controversial Crash in 1973, the award winning, semi-autobiographical
Empire of the Sun in 1984 and his recent Sunday Times bestseller Super-Cannes
- J.G. Ballard is firmly established as one of Britain's most highly regarded and
most influential novelists.
Throughout his remarkable career, he has won equal praise for his ground-
breaking short stories, which he first started writing during his days as a medical
student at Cambridge. In fact, it was winning a short story competition that gave
him the impetus to become a full-time writer.
His first published works, 'Prima Belladonna' and 'Escapement', appeared
in Science Fantasy and New Worlds in 1956. Ever since, he has been a prolific
producer of stories, which have been published in numerous magazines and
several separate collections, including The Voices of Time, The Terminal Beach,
The Disaster Area, The Day of Forever, Vermilion Sands, Low-Flying Aircraft,
The Venus Hunters, Myths of the Near Future and War Fever.
Now, for the first time, all of J. G. Ballard's published stories - including
four that have not previously appeared in a collection - have been gathered
together and arranged in the order of original publication, providing an
unprecedented opportunity to review the career of one of Britain's greatest
writers.
J.G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai, China, where his father was a
businessman. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he and his family were
placed in a civilian prison camp. They returned to England in 1946.
After reading Medicine at Cambridge for two years, he worked as a
copywriter and Covent Garden porter before going to Canada with the RAF. His
first short stories appeared in 1956, and after working on scientific journals he
published his first major novel, The Drowned World, in 1962. His acclaimed
1984 novel Empire of the Sun won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait
Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was later
filmed by Steven Spielberg. His 1973 novel Crash was also made into a film,
directed by David Cronenberg.
J. G. Ballard's most recent novels are Cocaine Nights and Super-Cannes.
CONTENTS

Introduction
Prima Belladonna
Escapement
The Concentration City
Venus Smiles
Manhole
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