The Complete Short Stories

But at some point in the new millennium they might well have decided to return to the world and test it against those dreams, ready to destroy it like a child bored with an unresponsive toy. Is it possible that the computers of this planet, having welcomed the population into this cave of illusion, then made a desperate decision and entombed them magnetically, translating them by some as yet undiscovered science into a memorised version of their physical selves? Once inside the cave, the door of virtual death was sealed and encrypted behind them, leaving the computers alone and safe at last.

If so, we arrived some moments too late. As we leave, the computers have calmed themselves, and are singing quietly in unison. Perhaps they miss their former companions, however brutish. Our concluding survey indicates that they have invented God, perhaps an idealised image of the race they entombed. As we set out into space we can hear them praying.

1992

About the Author

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 Sunwon 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 Crashwas also made into a film, directed by David Cronenberg.

J.G. Ballard’s most recent novels are Cocaine Nightsand Super-Cannes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The stories in this collection first appeared in the following publications:

‘Prima Belladonna’ Science Fantasy1956

‘Escapement’ New Worlds1956

‘The Concentration City’ (as ‘Build-Up’) New Worlds1957

‘Venus Smiles’ (as ‘Mobile’) Science Fantasy1957

‘Manhole 69’ New Worlds1957

‘Track 12’ New Worlds1958

‘The Waiting Grounds’ New Worlds1959

‘Now: Zero’ Science Fantasy1959

‘The Sound-Sweep’ Science Fantasy1960

‘Zone of Terror’ New Worlds1960

‘Chronopolis’ New Worlds1960

‘The Voices of Time’ New Worlds1960

‘The Last World of Mr Goddard’ Science Fantasy1960

‘Studio 5, The Stars’ Science Fantasy1961

‘Deep End’ New Worlds1961

‘The Overloaded Man’ New Worlds1961

‘Mr F. is Mr F.’ Science Fantasy1961

‘Billennium’ New Worlds1961

‘The Gentle Assassin’ New Worlds1961

‘The Insane Ones’ Amazing Stories1962

‘The Garden of Time’ Fantasy and Science Fiction1962

‘The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista’ Amazing Stories1962

‘Thirteen to Centaurus’ Amazing Stories1962

‘Passport to Eternity’ Amazing Stories1962

‘The Cage of Sand’ New Worlds1962

‘The Watch-Towers’ Science Fantasy1962

‘The Singing Statues’ Fantastic Stories1962

‘The Man on the 99th Floor’ New Worlds1962

‘The Subliminal Man’ New Worlds1963

‘The Reptile Enclosure’ (as ‘The Sherrington Theory’) Amazing Stories1963

‘A Question of Re-Entry’ Fantastic Stories1963

‘The Time-Tombs’ Worlds of If1963

‘Now Wakes the Sea’ Fantasy and Science Fiction 1963

‘The Venus Hunters’ (as ‘The Encounter’) Amazing Stories1963

‘End-Game’ New Worlds1963

‘Minus One’ Science Fantasy1963

‘The Sudden Afternoon’ Fantastic Stories1963

‘The Screen Game’ Fantastic Stories1963

‘Time of Passage’ Science Fantasy1964

‘Prisoner of the Coral Deep’ Argosy 1964

‘The Lost Leonardo’ Fantasy and Science Fiction1964

‘The Terminal Beach’ New Worlds1964

‘The Illuminated Man’ Fantasy and Science Fiction1964

‘The Delta at Sunset’ The Terminal Beach1964

‘The Drowned Giant’ The Terminal Beach1964

‘The Gioconda of the Twilight Noon’ The Terminal Beach1964

‘The Volcano Dances’ The Terminal Beach1964

‘The Beach Murders’ (as ‘Confetti Royale’) Rogue1966

‘The Day of Forever’ The Impossible Man1966

‘The Impossible Man’ The Impossible Man1966

‘Storm-Bird, Storm-Dreamer’ The Impossible Man1966

‘Tomorrow is a Million Years’ Argosy1966

‘The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race’ Ambit1966

‘Cry Hope, Cry Fury!’ Fantasy and Science Fiction1967