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J.G. Ballard

J.G. Ballard was a highly regarded English author, known for his works in both fiction and non-fiction. Born in Shanghai, China, in 1930, Ballard experienced the bombing of Pearl Harbor during the Second World War, an event that would later influence his writing. After spending time in a civilian prison camp, he and his family relocated to England in 1946. Ballard studied medicine in Cambridge for two years before embarking on a career as a copywriter, and later working as a Covent Garden porter. His writing is characterized by its straightforward style, but often contains unusual and unique stories.

Ballard's career as an author began in earnest with the publication of his first short story in 1956, and he would go on to write over 100 books over the course of his life. Early in his career, Ballard was associated with the New Wave of science fiction, with apocalyptic novels such as "The Drowned World" (1962), "The Burning World" (1964), and "The Crystal World" (1966). In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ballard shifted his focus to shorter, more experimental works, such as "The Atrocity Exhibition" (1970), which drew comparisons to the work of postmodernist writers like William S. Burroughs.

Ballard's most notable work is perhaps his relatively conventional war novel, "Empire of the Sun" (1984), a semi-autobiographical account of a young boy's experiences in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The novel was adapted into a film of the same name by Steven Spielberg in 1987. Ballard's writing is known for its distinctiveness, and has given rise to the term "Ballardian," which is defined by the Collins English Dictionary as "resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J.G. Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments." The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography describes Ballard's work as being occupied with "eros, thanatos, mass media and emergent technologies".
Empire Of The Sun Books
# Title Year
1 Empire of the Sun 1984
2 The Kindness of Women 1991
Standalone Novels
# Title Year
1 The Wind from Nowhere 1962
2 The Drowned World 1962
3 The Drought 1964
4 The Crystal World 1966
5 Love and Napalm 1970
6 Crash 1973
7 Concrete Island 1974
8 High-Rise 1975
9 The Unlimited Dream Company 1979
10 Hello America 1981
11 The Day of Creation 1987
12 Running Wild 1988
13 Rushing to Paradise 1994
14 Cocaine Nights 1996
15 Super-Cannes 2000
16 Millennium People 2003
17 Kingdom Come 2006
Short Stories/Novellas
# Title Year
1 The Subliminal Man 1963
2 Chronopolis 1971
Collections
# Title Year
1 Billenium 1962
2 The Voices of Time 1962
3 Passport To Eternity 1963
4 The Terminal Beach 1964
5 The Day of Forever 1967
6 The Disaster Area 1967
7 The Atrocity Exhibition 1970
8 Vermilion Sands 1971
9 Chronopolis and Other Stories 1971
10 Low Flying Aircraft and Other Stories 1976
11 The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard 1978
12 The Venus Hunters / The Overloaded Man 1980
13 Myths of the Near Future 1982
14 War Fever and Other Stories 1990
15 The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard 2001
16 The Complete Short Stories: Volume 2 2006
17 The Complete Short Stories, Volume 1 2006
18 The Best Science Fiction of J. G. Ballard 2009
Non-Fiction Books
# Title Year
1 A User's Guide to the Millennium 1996
2 Quotes 2004
3 J.G. Ballard Conversations 2005
4 Miracles of Life 2008
5 Extreme Metaphors 2012
6 Selected Nonfiction, 1962-2007 2023
Mondo Books
# Title Year
1 Mondo Barbie 1993
2 Mondo Elvis 1994
3 Mondo Marilyn 1995
4 Mondo James Dean 1996
J.G. Ballard Anthologies
# Title Year
1 Connoisseur's Science Fiction 1964
2 Dangerous Visions 1967
3 Dangerous Visions 3 1967
4 The Inner Landscape 1969
5 Mind At Bay 1969
6 The Year's Best Science Fiction No. 3 1970
7 Best From Fantasy And Science Fiction: 18th Series 1973
8 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow... 1974
9 Star Book of Horror No. 1 1975
10 Beyond Tomorrow 1976
11 The Best of British SF 2 1977
12 Nebula Award Stories 3 1983
13 Firebird 3: Writing Today 1984
14 Great Tales of Fantasy and Science Fiction 1985
15 The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories 1987
16 The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1989 1989
17 Mississippi Review 47 / 48 1988
18 Great Flying Stories 1991
19 Semiotext SF 1991
20 Storming the Reality Studio 1991
21 Mondo Barbie 1993
22 Mondo Elvis 1994
23 The Starry Wisdom: A Tribute to H.P. Lovecraft 1994
24 Mondo Marilyn 1995
25 Mondo James Dean 1996
26 Bangs & Whimpers 1999
27 Bangs & Whimpers: Stories about The End of The World 1999
28 The Campfire Collection 2005
29 The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction 2010
30 Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, "Found" Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts 2012
31 Terminal Atrocity Zone: Ballard: J.G. Ballard 1966-73 2013
32 Lost Mars 2018
33 Classic Stories of World War II 2018
34 Love, Death + Robots: The Official Anthology: Volumes 2 & 3 2022
Firebird Books
# Title Year
1 Firebird 2: Writing Today 1983