The Illuminated Man: an unconventional portrait of JG Ballard

ecliptik•about 2 hours ago

One of my favorite authors and highly recommend his short stories [1] and the "ambiguous apocalypse" trilogy - The Drowned World, The Burning World, and The Crystal World.

As one of collections intros said, Ballard is science fiction, but Inner Space, not Outer Space.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Short_Stories_of_...

atombender•about 1 hour ago

I absolutely loved The Crystal World. It's a unique, weird fever dream of a novel. I still find myself thinking about it at random times, even while being unsure if the book really makes sense.

The Burning World is rarely talked about. How is it?

FpUser•about 1 hour ago

>"The Drowned World, The Burning World, and The Crystal World" - same here, my favorites

pnw•about 1 hour ago

It seems like the best authors - JG Ballard in this instance - are somehow resistant to modern biographers. Even the least worst Phillip K Dick biography (Divine Invasions) is over 30 years old!

antirez•about 2 hours ago

Loved High rise, Concrete island, Empire of the sun. Also make sure to read this: https://www.jgballard.ca/uncollected_work/what_i_believe.htm...

Lio•about 1 hour ago

I really enjoyed some of his later books too. Cocaine Nights and Super Cannes are great.

Like a lot of his books they seem simple until you dig into them. They fry my brain a bit but that’s surrealism for you.

Will Self has some good writing about Ballard.

dbcooper•about 2 hours ago

"The 60 Minute Zoom" is a good short story to start with.

nickdothutton•about 2 hours ago

A favourite of mine. Do please check the interviews with him on youtube. Some authors try to show you the far future, he tried to show us the next 15 minutes.

languagehacker•about 3 hours ago

I absolutely love JG Ballard. Crash is a classic, and High Rise is a fun one.

fallinditch•about 3 hours ago

I thought I was broad-minded enough to read Crash - I wasn't. I did enjoy other Ballard books.

hermitcrab•about 2 hours ago

'The Atrocity Exhibition' is even weirder. I didn't get it at all. Enjoyed most of his other work though.

andrehacker•about 1 hour ago

Am I the only one that misread the title and expected to see something about the reclusive Bellard ?

The Illuminated Man: an unconventional portrait of JG Ballard

⚡ Community Insights

Discussion (12 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews