Customer Reviews

Hello America

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3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Hello America is a tale of the rediscovery of America one hundred years after its abandonment following a series of financial and energy disasters. The new pioneers find a desertified continent in which once mighty cities have become vast ghost towns; the sometime haunts of wandering "tribes" of "executives", "divorcees" and "bureaucrats". The explorers' transcontinental odyssey leads them to Las Vegas, reborn as a tropical paradise, where they meet "President" Charles Manson. Who they discover has very different ideas for reinventing the United States. Hello America is an improbable book. Not for its premise which is quite intriguing, but for its depictions of 100 year old watches, autos and cruise missiles that still function. Furthermore, Ballard's usually sly ironies take some painfully clumsy turns e.g., characters named "Pepsodent" ,"Heinz" and "Xerox". What hurts the book most is the feeling that Ballard is just fulfilling a publishing committment. He never warms to his story and character development, which has never been his strong suit, has rarely been more lacking in a book. What saves Hello America from the ash heap are his usual stocks in trade: interesting ideas, a rarified prose style and flashes of brilliant imagery. Still, a book for Ballard die hards only.

Well, I liked it. I don't think the other reviews were terribly fair. It wasn't Shakespaere or Sartre, but it wasn't awful either. The characters weren't terribly deep, but I can forgive that. And anyone who is judging this based on the plausibility of its premise really hasn't read much sci-fi at all.

I agree with another reviewer that it's a little hard to believe that much of the machinery would still be working after a century of disuse. But that doesn't detract from the story. And it's nothing compared with the suspension of disbelief required for some of the "new" flying machines featured in the story.

Wonderful premise! Awful execution! It's a tough experience to be 50 pages when one realizes that a book does not live up to expectations....at page 75 realize it shall not get better...at page 100 see that one is so bored there is too much temptation to give up. Listen to that temptation. It is unfathomable how a well-regard novelist wrote such a poor book and that no editor saved or stopped the book before it consumed several hours of my time with no gain to me.

I regret that I cannot recommend "Hello America." In fact, it got so silly at times that it was embarrassing. J.G. Ballard is a British writer whose perception of America is, to say the least, a little too broad. The book's premise (the whole population of the United States flees to Europe in the 2030s, then the whole continent is turned to desert when the Bering Strait is dammed) and characters (nutcases all) were totally implausible. The attempted humor falls flat because the author is taking his premise so seriously, but the premise falls flat because the characters and their adventures are so ridiculous.

The start of the book is good, besides it is hardly beliefable that things are still working after 100 years in the hardest conditions. The psychology of the characters is not very deep but the ultimate adventure that awaits for them made me read further after the first 50 pages. However when Ch. Manson appears in the story everything turns to the bad, worse, worst direction. The whole adventure becomes "forced" like the author had to make an end to the story (time pressure ?). The storyline becomes idiotic and completely boring. Actually it is a book you only read by "accident". I can not imagine that one is actually looking for it (unless she/he is forced to).

JG Ballard is better known for his 'true' historical fiction (Empire of the Sun) then for his alternate history novels and with good reason. Ballard imagines a world where the US has been destroyed as the result ecological warfare. The Russians had built a damn across the Behring Straits and caused the center of America (the great plains) to turn into a desert. Even the mighty Mississippi River had dried up, while huge sand dunes (like in the Sahara) had covered all of the USA from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic coast.

Those Americans who could get across the sea to Europe were assimilated back into their countries of origin while a few ended up in ghettos in Dublin and Berlin. The rest of the world had been taken over by the Russians. In the next hundred years a few rescue missions sailed for the Western Hemisphere, but none came back to tell any tales. The current mission, led by an ex-Israeli naval captain and made up of some ex-american descendants, aimed for New York City to find the Statue of Liberty and any other objects that could be brought back.

Having landed in NYC and finding that the city was covered by ten or more feet of sand, they decided to do some exploring or the vicinity. While in New Jersey they ran into some 'real' americans who had survived like bedouins in the harsh climate. OK. Are you getting bored? I was.

Blah, blah blah. They get to Las Vegas. It's run by a maniac who calls himself Charles Manson. He has nuclear missiles. Blah, blah blah. You get the point.
Truly disappointing. Kids though should enjoy it because a lot of things get blown up.

Zeb Kantrowitz