Introducing J.G. Ballard for Science Fiction Readers: 'THE DROWNED WORLD' & Disaster Tetralogy 

You're very kind, Super-Thanks makes all the difference here. I'm simply too busy making YT videos, working and trying to get through polymyalgia to write anything- two of my three nonfiction books are still in print and still sell. My Ballard pieces can be read in 'Deep Ends' (Terminal Press) in the 2016, 2018 and 2019 editions (the 2018 is the best one, the 2019 a short story homaging Ballard's "The Venus Hunters"). All available on Amazon. I am hoping to start writing fiction again before too long- next year maybe- as I have two small publishers interested.

@@outlawbookselleroriginal couldn’t agree more. Incredible resource.

The music not so much, though!

@@wonderworld1928 Can you clarify? You're saying you didn't like the music?

@@wonderworld1928 oh, I loved the music! But then I listen to drone and atonal music to relax. Just be glad that I am not your neighbour!

We certainly do!

Many thanks. Do share on your social media, we need views here!

Thanks. I love shooting outdoors- there are many travel shoots here (my ones of Capri, Italy are full of literary references to the many writers who lived and worked on the island) and there is more outdoor stuff on my new channel, Walking Bookseller.

Visual artists find Ballard inspiring, I think, as his imagery is so strong.

He becomes increasingly relevant, I find.

Yes, the Met Gala thing was widely commented upon by Ballardians. And you're correct, the imagery is key. One 'understands' Ballard indirectly, subsconsciously, I think , which is very Freudian and consequently explains the links to Surrealism.

Yes, there is definitely Horror in Ballard, even in early stories and definitely in the 1970s material. I told Matt some time ago that 'Super-Cannes' is the finest late Ballard and of course it is in my book '100 Must Read Science Fiction Novels' - my copy was given to me by Ballard (to be specific, he signed a copy and asked them to pass it on to me via their sales rep - and his partner Claire...who is the basis for Helen Remington in 'Crash' came into my bookshop at the location of this video to take me to lunch at JG's request, but I was away on holiday- I was of course gutted).

Cheers Clive- this was a fun shoot.

Great to hear from Belgium, more Ballard coming up soon and dig back into the channel and you'll see some Ballard collecting videos.

As I said in the video, I think Ballard himself underrated it. I think it's a good read, I have two copies and have read it three times.

"Prima Belladonna" is one of his very earliest stories, one of the 'Vermilion Sands' tales, a great book to start reading JGB with. My 10,000 plus word essay in 'Deep Ends 2018' (fully illustrated in colour with pics by myself), which is entitled "Me: Capri" Brigitte Bardot' is a look at how my Italian holidays intersect with Ballard's work....

Thanks!

Undoubtedly. Amis may have said that first, but it is absolutely true. I always think Lucius Shepard owes much to Ballard, but no-one ever says this.

Thanks. Yes, 'Hello America' is an odd one, one of his transitional novels- the recurrence of the postapocalyptic motif but with a Baudrillardian look at the USA...it seems to prefigure 'The Day of Creation' too, I'd say. Ballard's imagery is always stunning, right.

Genius.

Ballard is all around us wherever there are Modern urban spaces...

There is already one on the channel, from the early days, one of my most watched clips- it's about why you should read 'Junky' before tackling 'Naked Lunch'. Review the videos by 'most popular' and you'll find it. I must do more on WSB really, as I love his stuff so much....

Ballard is too much for many, sadly. She should maybe have a look at 'The Kindness of Women', the sequel to 'Empire..' and his autobiography, 'Miracles of Life'.

Yes, there was no-one like Jimmy B!

Natural habitat stuff, right?

@@outlawbookselleroriginal I guess being a troubled teen, running away from home and being completely smitten with graffiti, the places inbetween, the concrete stantions and man made caves these structures offered were secret playgrounds and havens in a way. When I illegally painted them they gave me a freedom as much as they symbolised ennui and a type of brutalist facist hopelessness. I love Ballard. Thank you to him and to you for keeping it all alive.

I'm finding I've fallen into the 'multiple editions zone' with Ballard, which is absurd given that I have signed firsts of almost everything...but he's a writer you can never have too much of!

Thanks. Check out my Keith Roberts video- the one with the Chris Foss thumbnial- it's even more together there.

Yes, but very uncommon in the Pelham slipcase!

Thanks Felix - I love shooting outdoors as you know from my many walking/travel videos on the channel in which I often mention SF. The big problem is finding suitable locations that conjure up the right imagery that are also lacking hordes of people milling around- so when I can make this work, I will do more like this.

Thanks ace.

Thanks Jozef, good to hear from you as ever. Yes, I used a different mic, but I hate doing voiceovers, though I must say I was pleased with the results. I usually prefer to speak on location, but you don't always get the best results that way. It is often hard to find suitable locations for outdoor SF shoots, but as I come across them, I shoot them- if you look ay my first Keith Roberts video- where I visit the places some of his books are set at, that's a good example. The urban environment is key in Ballard's works, especially from the 1970s onward.

You see, I think these books ARE actually SF: what Ballard did was change the genre- those books are about how the human mind is changed by technology- both the high rise block and traffic island are products of technology and in these novels, he stretched their potential five minutes into the future, into times where someone could get stranded beneath a traffic island and where a high rise erupted into atavistic tribalism. As those things had not happened at that point, as they were possibilities that lay in a future, they are SF.

@@outlawbookselleroriginal I can understand that perspective. Maybe it’s a matter of them being true *sociological* SF, while still intersecting with technological concerns. Not to muddle things up with my own drab stuff, but I myself have a short story wherein compulsive gamblers are herded into homes where they can supposedly gamble to their heart’s content, a work which I’ve described to other people as speculative fiction. (It was actually my first published short story.) Also: wasn’t the term “slipstream” coined to specifically describe Ballard’s later work?

Thank you. Yes, his shorts are excellent. Do watch the backlist there are other Ballard videos here, more to come and lots of other New Wave SF content.

Hey Simon, glad to hear you enjoyed this- those were great days we shared back then and viewers of this channel have you to thank for getting me back into SF when my interest had waned for some time. The building the shop was in is still there, largely unchanged- but the rest of the campus has been built over so much, it is like a Ballardian space as you see...

Cheers. Like the PKD reference in your handle.

Tack in return. Thanks for supporting the channel as always!

Thanks my good man! Your channel support contribution is most welcome!

Glad you enjoyed it, mate and good to see you commenting here, much appreciated.

Very kind as ever, Rick.

Re-reading 'The Terminal Beach' today...

Yes, they've overbuilt on all the beautiful green spaces that used to be there- we were reviewing this back on the plasma just now and Pat- who as you know worked up there for years- said how ugly many of the new builds are.

Many thanks! ST is the lifeblood of this channel, I'm v grateful. I love shooting outdoors, but of course it's often hard to find locations that suit the material, especially for SF!

There is a brilliant short story by Charles Platt entitled "The Disaster Story" which is basically a list of the cliches and common elements of the post-catastrophe tale - it's entirely satisfactory in itself and also works as a bit of pre-Ballardian disaster fiction criticism.

@@outlawbookselleroriginal Thank ye! I might add that to the Loooong list of books/stories to look for. I have to say though, that after reading Garbage World this year, Platt is one author I would only return to by direct recommendation.

@@OmnivorousReader In that case, it may well be that New Wave SF (including Ballard) is not for you- but having said that, 'Garbage World' is not Platt at his best-I'd give that accolade to 'The City Dwellers'.

@@outlawbookselleroriginal I have heard that about City Dwellers before, I am on the lookout for it. I quite like Ballard, I found The Drowned World pretty fascinating and swampy. I remember really liking Ballard when I was younger but Garbage World was my first Platt. I might just not have been prepared - it was certainly memorable and I might re-read it sometime just to see. New Wave? Some I like, some less so; Zelazny I adore, Sturgeon and Damon Knight, Delany and Ellison I am pretty enthusiastic about. Le Guin I enjoy... Could go on... will certainly go on reading 'em...

@@OmnivorousReader Well, you're mostly talking about US New Wave there, the canon of which is drawn from Ellison's 'Dangerous Visions'. Sturgeon and Knight obviously predate the 1960s. British New Wave is more definitive, being firmly based on Modernism in terms of difficulty of style and less on taboo breaking, though this is an element. Because of their presence in London in the late 1960s, Delany, Spinrad, Disch, Saldek and Sallis (all of whom were published in 'New Worlds' magazine) are more definitively New Wave than say Zelazny, Ellison or LeGuin, though they played their parts. All great stuff from my perspective.

Many, many thanks Victor- ST makes all the diff here, as you know!!!!

Hey Kenny, good to hear from you. The thing with Ballard is that he has to appeal to you semi-subconsciously, hence his interest in Surrealism which had some of its roots in psychoanalysis. In other words, his work is not usually rational or explicable in the way that most SF is. I love his stuff personally, which I guess says a lot about me LOL!

This video is shot on the campus of the University of Bath. I, and the Outlaw Bookseller, spent many happy years there!

@@timcoombs2780 Maybe you could answer this question for me. Do you know if some of this architecture would be considered brutalism? And is that grassed-over amphitheater?

It most certainly is an amphitheatre! A nice place to sit and eat lunch on a sunny day as long as you don’t mind being mugged by ducks! The main university buildings were built in the 1960s and so have a certain brutalistic aspect to them. It’s only seeing them like this that I realised just how ugly they are! I guess I just took them for granted when I was there!

@@timcoombs2780 Thank you very much for answering my questions. Much appreciated.

Yes. Much as I love PKD, I'd prefer to be holed up with JGB- he was a nice guy in person too and a warm correspondent.

All of that will be covered in time, watch this space. Thanks for your kind comments.

@@outlawbookselleroriginal Looking forward to coverage of this period sometime. Many thanks!

Yes, it was very good- based on his story "The Enormous Space". I have it somewhere here on VHS....

There are no 'buy links'. In theory I should add some, but I found it impossible to actually do this with Amazon due to the entirely non-intuitive nature of their system.

While I'm alarmed at the notion of being 'Moidian' (as you say far from my intention - I mention 'The Blazing World' as an aside months ago, having read it decades ago, he does a whole video about it) I'm glad you enjoyed it. I very, very rarely do voiceover videos- I absolutely hate doing them, I'd rather free-form, I find the tech for voiceover ungainly. I think I've an established tradition of shooting outdoors- I did my first outdoor SF reviews (Cordwainer Smith) before even Matt of Bookpilled started doing them- and like Matt, I love filming in beautiful places. But this location needed a voiceover, as I shot the footage a couple of months ago. It's actually a University campus where I once mamaged the bookshop for a total of ten years, an experience that was my most profitable and enjoyable in all my years in managing shops. I've now gone fifteen years in the trade without managing and I miss it hugely.

@@outlawbookselleroriginal Don't be alarmed. It's not a dig at either of you, just an observation - perhaps platform shapes performance? App is Destiny?

@@waltera13 You're getting very deep there old chum! LOL

@@outlawbookselleroriginal 😂🤣

Thanks Jane!

Cheers!

Yes, he would have found a LOT to write about!

His last few books (from ‘Cocaine Nights’ onwards) were really hitting the mark with comments about contemporary culture, it would be very interesting indeed to see what he could conjure up!