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I literally started reading his short stories yesterday. Can you recommend some favorites? So far, I’ve read Terminal Beach and The Drowned Giant.

ghaff 3y ago
When I wrote something on recommended short stories a while back, I picked Chronopolis and also wrote "Other Ballard shorts that aren't too experimental include "The Drowned Giant," "The Overloaded Man," and perhaps the most conventionally SF "Thirteen for Centaurus.""
ecliptik 3y ago
I put a few of my favorites in a comment a couple of months ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38237862 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38237862 Since then I've also really enjoyed "The Ultimate City", which is Solarpunk before it was called Solarpunk.
meheleventyone 3y ago
A huge collection of them have been released as an audiobook. Highly recommended!
flenserboy 3y ago
Of his later stories, "War Fever" has stayed with me; it has clear conceptual connections with Will Self's "Quantity Theory of Insanity". Running Wild is also extremely taut & affecting.
lordfrito 3y ago
I'm a huge fan of the Vermillion Sands anthology. A group of stories set in a future resort town populated mainly by bored celebrities, rich people, artists and other oddballs... The stories center around the dystopia that emerges when technology gives these neurotic/narcissistic humans too much power and too much free time. The games bored rich people play, the traps we fall into, etc. The day to day "leisure" aspect of the stories makes the world they live in almost mundane, while at the same time its terrifyingly familiar. Although in many ways the "future tech" in the stories is dated, the humans in the stories haven't changed a bit. Always felt these stories are relevant to the technology enabled problems we're facing today. Humans are the problem. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
- scandox 3y ago
  The Vermilion Sands stories are definitely an acquired taste and I think Ballard did have a genuine and perverse attraction to high society (admittedly one of his own creation). I find them difficult to love.
hermitcrab 3y ago
'The Drowned Giant' is beautiful and sad.

ghaff 3y ago

When I wrote something on recommended short stories a while back, I picked Chronopolis and also wrote "Other Ballard shorts that aren't too experimental include "The Drowned Giant," "The Overloaded Man," and perhaps the most conventionally SF "Thirteen for Centaurus.""

ecliptik 3y ago

I put a few of my favorites in a comment a couple of months ago, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38237862 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38237862 Since then I've also really enjoyed "The Ultimate City", which is Solarpunk before it was called Solarpunk.

meheleventyone 3y ago

A huge collection of them have been released as an audiobook. Highly recommended!

flenserboy 3y ago

Of his later stories, "War Fever" has stayed with me; it has clear conceptual connections with Will Self's "Quantity Theory of Insanity". Running Wild is also extremely taut & affecting.

lordfrito 3y ago

I'm a huge fan of the Vermillion Sands anthology. A group of stories set in a future resort town populated mainly by bored celebrities, rich people, artists and other oddballs... The stories center around the dystopia that emerges when technology gives these neurotic/narcissistic humans too much power and too much free time. The games bored rich people play, the traps we fall into, etc. The day to day "leisure" aspect of the stories makes the world they live in almost mundane, while at the same time its terrifyingly familiar. Although in many ways the "future tech" in the stories is dated, the humans in the stories haven't changed a bit. Always felt these stories are relevant to the technology enabled problems we're facing today. Humans are the problem. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

scandox 3y ago
The Vermilion Sands stories are definitely an acquired taste and I think Ballard did have a genuine and perverse attraction to high society (admittedly one of his own creation). I find them difficult to love.

hermitcrab 3y ago

'The Drowned Giant' is beautiful and sad.