*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: What’s Old is our feature where we highlight stuff from our catalogue that you may have missed. This week, we turn our attention to J G Ballard, one of the leading lights of the New Wave of Science Fiction which came to prominence in the UK and USA in the 1960s. Initially a writer of surreal and disturbing short stories such as in the collections ‘The Overloaded Man’ or ‘The Terminal Beach’, he wrote several haunting novels around themes of a decaying world such as ‘The Drought’ and ‘The Wind From Nowhere’ and later collections included ‘Low Flying Aircraft’ and ‘The Venus Hunters’. All of these and more can be found in our catalogue. Ballard’s work was often steeped in controversy such as in ‘Crash’ (adapted to film by David Cronenburg), but it is perhaps for the mainstream war novel ‘Empire of the Sun’ (filmed by Spielberg) that he will be best remembered outside the genre. Ballard is not a comfortable, easy read; rather he is unsettling and thought-provoking, playing with dystopias and the psychological effects of topographical catastrophes. He’d have had a field day with our present dystopia.
PICTURED:
LOW FLYING AIRCRAFT IST HC WITH DJ VG £45
THE OVERLOADED MAN 1ST PB VG £25
THE TERMINAL BEACH 1ST PB VG £12
THE VOICES OF TIME & OTHER STORIES 1ST US PB GD/VG £15
THE WIND FROM NOWHERE 1ST US PB GD/VG £15