Product Description
Time Travelers gathers twenty-four tales by the most recognizable names in the genre. Included is the first time-travel story ever written -- penned by American journalist Edward Page Mitchell fourteen years prior to Well's landmark novel. Here, too, is a selection by master of future history Robert A. Heinlein, who's "All You Zombies --" involes a character traveling back and forth through time on a bizarre genetic mission. Also included amont those roming in the fourth dimension are such legendary sci-fi writers as Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Philip K. Dick, along with such contemporary voices as William Gibson and Martin Amis. Of course, there is a selection by H. G. Wells --a piece origninally writeen as part of the Time Machine but curiously excised when the book was published. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Changing the Earth beyond recognition
It came from nowhere and had no cause that the scientists could put their finger on.It could have been unusual solar winds some researchers suggested, but really they were only guessing.It began as a stiff breeze, then increasing at a steady five miles an hour a day. It became a storm, then a hurricane, then a ground-stripping fury of titanic, unearthly proportions that threatened to wipe man off the planet.Traveling from East to West it circled the globe, strongest near the equator, weakest at the poles.It resembled those mighty gas flows that hurtle around Saturn.It threatened to completely alter the planet beyond recognition.Amid this natural fury Donald Maitland (doctor), Andrew Symington (radio expert), Steven Lanyon (submarine commander), Patricia Olsen (NBC reporter), Simon Marshall (TV expert) and Deborah Mason (secretary) will all increasingly struggle for survival as the storm grows.Their paths will cross and intermingle.Some will survive, but not all.What is to be the fate of these characters, and indeed of human kind?

This is J. G. Ballard's first novel and it is a fine effort, certainly worth reading.Many will remember this writer as the author of the memorable, social-realist novel Empire of the Sun, but Ballard began his career writing science-fiction short-stories for British magazines like .Some indeed consider his best work to be the early sci-fi short stories.Knngsley Amis tipped Ballard as "the most imaginative of Wells's successors" and he indeed went on to write a number of memorable sci-fi novels, including The Drowned World, The Crystal World and Crash: A Novel.

By writing a number of interconnected plots Ballard manages to make this book interesting, exciting and yet realistic.We do not feel that an unbelievable number of catastrophes, and slim escapes, happen to any one person.We are rather given the impression of a disaster on a grand scale that affects the lives of many people in various different ways.

Despite there being so many characters most people are described well and have an individuality, though it should be pointed out that some are the more important than others and are more clearly defined.

Like most science-fiction stories this book requires a certain "willing suspension of disbelief" and I do not recommend it to you if you prefer 'real life' stories, but if you have imagination and a free-ranging mind you will enjoy this novel.

Changing the Earth beyond recognition
It came from nowhere and had no cause that the scientists could put their finger on.It could have been unusual solar winds some researchers suggested, but really they were only guessing.It began as a stiff breeze, then increasing at a steady five miles an hour a day. It became a storm, then a hurricane, then a ground-stripping fury of titanic, unearthly proportions that threatened to wipe man off the planet.Traveling from East to West it circled the globe, strongest near the equator, weakest at the poles.It resembled those mighty gas flows that hurtle around Saturn.It threatened to completely alter the planet beyond recognition.Amid this natural fury Donald Maitland (doctor), Andrew Symington (radio expert), Steven Lanyon (submarine commander), Patricia Olsen (NBC reporter), Simon Marshall (TV expert) and Deborah Mason (secretary) will all increasingly struggle for survival as the storm grows.Their paths will cross and intermingle.Some will survive, but not all.What is to be the fate of these characters, and indeed of human kind?

This is J. G. Ballard's first novel and it is a fine effort, certainly worth reading.Many will remember this writer as the author of the memorable, social-realist novel Empire of the Sun, but Ballard began his career writing science-fiction short-stories for British magazines like .Some indeed consider his best work to be the early sci-fi short stories.Knngsley Amis tipped Ballard as "the most imaginative of Wells's successors" and he indeed went on to write a number of memorable sci-fi novels, including The Drowned World, The Crystal World and Crash: A Novel.

By writing a number of interconnected plots Ballard manages to make this book interesting, exciting and yet realistic.We do not feel that an unbelievable number of catastrophes, and slim escapes, happen to any one person.We are rather given the impression of a disaster on a grand scale that affects the lives of many people in various different ways.

Despite there being so many characters most people are described well and have an individuality, though it should be pointed out that some are the more important than others and are more clearly defined.

Like most science-fiction stories this book requires a certain "willing suspension of disbelief" and I do not recommend it to you if you prefer 'real life' stories, but if you have imagination and a free-ranging mind you will enjoy this novel.

Changing the Earth beyond recognition
It came from nowhere and had no cause that the scientists could put their finger on.It could have been unusual solar winds some researchers suggested, but really they were only guessing.It began as a stiff breeze, then increasing at a steady five miles an hour a day. It became a storm, then a hurricane, then a ground-stripping fury of titanic, unearthly proportions that threatened to wipe man off the planet.Traveling from East to West it circled the globe, strongest near the equator, weakest at the poles.It resembled those mighty gas flows that hurtle around Saturn.It threatened to completely alter the planet beyond recognition.Amid this natural fury Donald Maitland (doctor), Andrew Symington (radio expert), Steven Lanyon (submarine commander), Patricia Olsen (NBC reporter), Simon Marshall (TV expert) and Deborah Mason (secretary) will all increasingly struggle for survival as the storm grows.Their paths will cross and intermingle.Some will survive, but not all.What is to be the fate of these characters, and indeed of human kind?

This is J. G. Ballard's first novel and it is a fine effort, certainly worth reading.Many will remember this writer as the author of the memorable, social-realist novel Empire of the Sun, but Ballard began his career writing science-fiction short-stories for British magazines like .Some indeed consider his best work to be the early sci-fi short stories.Knngsley Amis tipped Ballard as "the most imaginative of Wells's successors" and he indeed went on to write a number of memorable sci-fi novels, including The Drowned World, The Crystal World and Crash: A Novel.

By writing a number of interconnected plots Ballard manages to make this book interesting, exciting and yet realistic.We do not feel that an unbelievable number of catastrophes, and slim escapes, happen to any one person.We are rather given the impression of a disaster on a grand scale that affects the lives of many people in various different ways.

Despite there being so many characters most people are described well and have an individuality, though it should be pointed out that some are the more important than others and are more clearly defined.

Like most science-fiction stories this book requires a certain "willing suspension of disbelief" and I do not recommend it to you if you prefer 'real life' stories, but if you have imagination and a free-ranging mind you will enjoy this novel.

Changing the Earth beyond recognition
It came from nowhere and had no cause that the scientists could put their finger on.It could have been unusual solar winds some researchers suggested, but really they were only guessing.It began as a stiff breeze, then increasing at a steady five miles an hour a day. It became a storm, then a hurricane, then a ground-stripping fury of titanic, unearthly proportions that threatened to wipe man off the planet.Traveling from East to West it circled the globe, strongest near the equator, weakest at the poles.It resembled those mighty gas flows that hurtle around Saturn.It threatened to completely alter the planet beyond recognition.Amid this natural fury Donald Maitland (doctor), Andrew Symington (radio expert), Steven Lanyon (submarine commander), Patricia Olsen (NBC reporter), Simon Marshall (TV expert) and Deborah Mason (secretary) will all increasingly struggle for survival as the storm grows.Their paths will cross and intermingle.Some will survive, but not all.What is to be the fate of these characters, and indeed of human kind?

This is J. G. Ballard's first novel and it is a fine effort, certainly worth reading.Many will remember this writer as the author of the memorable, social-realist novel Empire of the Sun, but Ballard began his career writing science-fiction short-stories for British magazines like .Some indeed consider his best work to be the early sci-fi short stories.Knngsley Amis tipped Ballard as "the most imaginative of Wells's successors" and he indeed went on to write a number of memorable sci-fi novels, including The Drowned World, The Crystal World and Crash: A Novel.

By writing a number of interconnected plots Ballard manages to make this book interesting, exciting and yet realistic.We do not feel that an unbelievable number of catastrophes, and slim escapes, happen to any one person.We are rather given the impression of a disaster on a grand scale that affects the lives of many people in various different ways.

Despite there being so many characters most people are described well and have an individuality, though it should be pointed out that some are the more important than others and are more clearly defined.

Like most science-fiction stories this book requires a certain "willing suspension of disbelief" and I do not recommend it to you if you prefer 'real life' stories, but if you have imagination and a free-ranging mind you will enjoy this novel.

Changing the Earth beyond recognition
It came from nowhere and had no cause that the scientists could put their finger on.It could have been unusual solar winds some researchers suggested, but really they were only guessing.It began as a stiff breeze, then increasing at a steady five miles an hour a day. It became a storm, then a hurricane, then a ground-stripping fury of titanic, unearthly proportions that threatened to wipe man off the planet.Traveling from East to West it circled the globe, strongest near the equator, weakest at the poles.It resembled those mighty gas flows that hurtle around Saturn.It threatened to completely alter the planet beyond recognition.Amid this natural fury Donald Maitland (doctor), Andrew Symington (radio expert), Steven Lanyon (submarine commander), Patricia Olsen (NBC reporter), Simon Marshall (TV expert) and Deborah Mason (secretary) will all increasingly struggle for survival as the storm grows.Their paths will cross and intermingle.Some will survive, but not all.What is to be the fate of these characters, and indeed of human kind?

This is J. G. Ballard's first novel and it is a fine effort, certainly worth reading.Many will remember this writer as the author of the memorable, social-realist novel Empire of the Sun, but Ballard began his career writing science-fiction short-stories for British magazines like .Some indeed consider his best work to be the early sci-fi short stories.Knngsley Amis tipped Ballard as "the most imaginative of Wells's successors" and he indeed went on to write a number of memorable sci-fi novels, including The Drowned World, The Crystal World and Crash: A Novel.

By writing a number of interconnected plots Ballard manages to make this book interesting, exciting and yet realistic.We do not feel that an unbelievable number of catastrophes, and slim escapes, happen to any one person.We are rather given the impression of a disaster on a grand scale that affects the lives of many people in various different ways.

Despite there being so many characters most people are described well and have an individuality, though it should be pointed out that some are the more important than others and are more clearly defined.

Like most science-fiction stories this book requires a certain "willing suspension of disbelief" and I do not recommend it to you if you prefer 'real life' stories, but if you have imagination and a free-ranging mind you will enjoy this novel.
... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Artforum International, published by Artforum International Magazine, Inc. on October 1, 2009. The length of the article is 5222 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The future that had arrived.(J. G. Ballard )
Author: J.G. Ballard
Publication: Artforum International (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2009
Publisher: Artforum International Magazine, Inc.
Volume: 48Issue: 2Page: 200(8)

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Superb story telling
This is one of my very favourite books. The writing is very evocative of a different place and time.

The stories aren't really about technology, nor do they go into very much detail about the outside world in which they're set, they just happen with exquisite detail in their own fascinating community.

It's a group of interesting stories about a bohemian community reminescent of either a bygone era in Hollywood or the artists quarter of a city like Paris a century ago - only the stories are set in a odd, dried out, languid world that is absolutely convincing of a different time and place that has never existed but might in the future.

It feels familiar but the arts practiced in it rely on technology non-existent today - and the stories are completely convincing regardless of the technology yet entirely including it.

It's a beautiful example of literature and story telling that's coincidentally superb S.F.

Beautiful, brilliant, and inspired fantasy of the future
This magnificent collection of stories was first published in 1971. Although this book frequently shows up on lists of the greatest books of all time in that genre, it is not science fiction so much as a vision of possible forms that the arts could take in the future. It is more futuristic fantasy than science fiction. This volume marked J. G. Ballard's maturation as an author. Before this work, much of his work had been highly inventive but more mainstream science fiction. More specifically, he specialized in novels along the theme "this is the way the world ends." For instance, THE DROWNED WORLD concerns the fate of individuals living in tropical London after the polar ice caps have melted, leaving much of the world underwater. In THE WIND FROM NOWHERE a never-ceasing wind destroys the planet by blowing away all the soil and making agriculture and most other forms of human endeavor impossible.
What makes VERMILLION SANDS is the sheer inventiveness of the world he imagines. It is a cheap, tacky world, not unlike a tawdry Las Vegas or Palm Springs, populated by futuristic artists and cultural has-beens. The art forms that Ballard imagines are brilliant, and feel far more familiar thirty years later than they must have felt to those in the early 1970s. After all, computers and the Internet and digitalization has constantly forced us to rethink the possibilities and forms of art. Ballard describes architecture that responds to the emotional experiences of its inhabitants and imparts some of that feeling back to those entering it. He imagines machines rather than people producing poetry, on long ticker tape like rolls of paper. Plants that sing. Sculptors who work with clouds as their preferred medium. And Ballard manages to meld these strange new arts perfectly into the lives of a rich and fascinating, if also rather sad and tragic, group of characters.

This book is, at the time that I am writing this, out of print. But it has over the years come back in print on a few occasions. I am certain that it will again. It is without question a much more interesting book than many of his that are currently in print, and if there is any justice it will once again be made available. Until then, it is well worth searching out.

Beautiful, brilliant, and inspired fantasy of the future
This magnificent collection of stories was first published in 1971. Although this book frequently shows up on lists of the greatest books of all time in that genre, it is not science fiction so much as a vision of possible forms that the arts could take in the future. It is more futuristic fantasy than science fiction. This volume marked J. G. Ballard's maturation as an author. Before this work, much of his work had been highly inventive but more mainstream science fiction. More specifically, he specialized in novels along the theme "this is the way the world ends." For instance, THE DROWNED WORLD concerns the fate of individuals living in tropical London after the polar ice caps have melted, leaving much of the world underwater. In THE WIND FROM NOWHERE a never-ceasing wind destroys the planet by blowing away all the soil and making agriculture and most other forms of human endeavor impossible.
What makes VERMILLION SANDS is the sheer inventiveness of the world he imagines. It is a cheap, tacky world, not unlike a tawdry Las Vegas or Palm Springs, populated by futuristic artists and cultural has-beens. The art forms that Ballard imagines are brilliant, and feel far more familiar thirty years later than they must have felt to those in the early 1970s. After all, computers and the Internet and digitalization has constantly forced us to rethink the possibilities and forms of art. Ballard describes architecture that responds to the emotional experiences of its inhabitants and imparts some of that feeling back to those entering it. He imagines machines rather than people producing poetry, on long ticker tape like rolls of paper. Plants that sing. Sculptors who work with clouds as their preferred medium. And Ballard manages to meld these strange new arts perfectly into the lives of a rich and fascinating, if also rather sad and tragic, group of characters.

This book is, at the time that I am writing this, out of print. But it has over the years come back in print on a few occasions. I am certain that it will again. It is without question a much more interesting book than many of his that are currently in print, and if there is any justice it will once again be made available. Until then, it is well worth searching out. ... Read more

Product Description
Have you, for example ever tried "switching off" surrounding objects? It's quite simple providing you concentrate upon one dominant item to look at. But what happens to the "switched off" objects? Are they still there or do they slip into some mysterious limbo of Time? ... Read more