Customer Reviews

MYTHS OF THE NEAR FUTURE.

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I am not usually a devotee of the short story compilation, but found this collection by Ballard, surely the most cerebral of sci-fi authors, to be utterly compelling. Nine of the works (the tenth "Dead Time" seems oddly out of place here), are complete entities in their own right, but together, compliment each other into creating a bizarre and disturbing, but scarily plausible vision of what humankind is becoming. Civil war erupts in the UK, whilst elsewhere, cyber-recluses fester in their fortress homes. Folk experiment with practical time travel, living their lives in fleeting moments of lucidity, whilst others get married and have families with spouses they can never meet. My particular favourite The Smile, rings faint echoes of Wilde's Dorien Gray and chilled me to the bone though I read it on a hot sunny day in my garden. Ballard's visionary style is as innovative as ever, often employing startling imagery that grabs the reader at a visceral level. Myths will not be to everyone's taste. If, however, you are an adventurous soul, I thouroughly recommend this book which, although parts of which are a quarter of a century old, remains hugely valid today.