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The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard

Name: The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard
Rating: 4.18 (1678 reviews)
Author: J.G. Ballard

J.G. Ballard January 1, 1978

4.18 1.7k Ratings

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Synopsis

First published in 1978, this collection of nineteen of Ballard’s best short stories is as timely and informed as ever. His tales of the human psyche and its relationship to nature and technology, as viewed through a strong microscope, were eerily prescient and now provide greater perspective on our computer-dominated culture. Ballard’s voice and vision have long served as a font of inspiration for today’s cyber-punks, the authors and futurist who brought the information age into the mainstream.

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The Essential Ellison: A 50 Year Retrospective

★ 4.54

Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison is probably best known as a script writer for sci-fi and fantasy movies and TV series such as the original Outer Limits, The Hunger, Logan's Run, and Babylon Five. But his range is much broader than that, encompassing stories, novels, essays, reviews, reminiscences, plays, even fake autobiographies. The Essential Ellison, a special limited edition personally signed and numbered by Ellison, contains 74 unabridged works, including such classics as "A Boy and His Dog," "Xenogenesis," and "Mefisto in Onyx."

The Wind’s Twelve Quarters

★ 4.06

Ursula K. Le Guin

The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, and the Pushcart Prize, Ursula K. Le Guin is renowned for her lyrical writing, rich characters, and diverse worlds. The Wind's Twelve Quarters collects seventeen powerful stories, each with an introduction by the author, ranging from fantasy to intriguing scientific concepts, from medieval settings to the future.

Including an insightful foreword by Le Guin, describing her experience, her inspirations, and her approach to writing, this stunning collection explores human values, relationships, and survival, and showcases the myriad talents of one of the most provocative writers of our time.

The Persistence of Vision

★ 4.13

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Introduction · Algis Budrys · in
The Phantom of Kansas · nv Galaxy Feb ’76
Air Raid [as by Herb Boehm] · ss IASFM Spr ’77
Retrograde Summer · nv F&SF Feb ’75
The Black Hole Passes · nv F&SF Jun ’75
In the Hall of the Martian Kings · na F&SF Feb ’77
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Overdrawn at the Memory Bank · nv Galaxy May ’76
The Persistence of Vision · na F&SF Mar ’78

Again, Dangerous Visions

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All you need to know about this book:

1- It is the companion volume to the most influential book of speculative fiction in the past twenty-five years, the award-winning "Dangerous Visions". Of course, you've heard of "Dangerous Visions".
2- It contains original stories, written especially for this anthology, by forty-two very special writers, none of whom were in "Dangerous Visions". Of course, you remember the writers who won all those awards for "Dangerous Visions".
3- It contains forty-six stories ranging in length from shorties of 1,000 words to short novels of 40,000 words; each story was written without thought to taboos or publishing restrictions that usually hamper sci-fi writers. Of course, you remember what a mind-blower, in this respect, was "Dangerous Visions".
4- Each story has its own Afterword by the author, as well as its own individual Introduction by the editor. Of course, you remember the wealth of addenda that made such a milestone of "Dangerous Visions".
5, 6, & 7- It took over three years to compile this book. It has been edited by Harlan Ellison who put together "Dangerous Visions", which you will surely recall. And... this is a more startling book than "Dangerous Visions". This book takes off where "Dangerous Visions" stopped and it is a BETTER book than "Dangerous Visions".

The John Varley Reader

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From the moment John Varley burst onto the scene in 1974, his short fiction was like nothing anyone else was writing. His stories won every award the science fiction field had to offer, many times over. His first collection, The Persistence of Vision, published in 1978, was the most important collection of the decade, and changed what fans would come to expect from science fiction.

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1 • Picnic on Nearside • [Eight Worlds] • (1974) • novelette by John Varley
24 • Overdrawn at the Memory Bank • [Eight Worlds] • (1976) • novelette by John Varley
53 • In the Hall of the Martian Kings • (1976) • novella by John Varley
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146 • The Phantom of Kansas • [Eight Worlds] • (1976) • novelette by John Varley
180 • Beatnik Bayou • [Eight Worlds] • (1980) • novelette by John Varley
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449 • In Fading Suns and Dying Moons • (2003) • novelette by John Varley
467 • The Flying Dutchman • (1998) • shortstory by John Varley
486 • Good Intentions • (1992) • shortstory by John Varley
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A Fisherman of the Inland Sea

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Slippage: Previously Precariously Poised, Uncollected Stories

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Harlan Ellison is undoubtedly one of the most audacious, infuriating, brazen characters on the planet. Which may help explain why he is also one of the most brilliant, innovative, and eloquent writers on earth. Slippage simply presents recent, typical Ellison. In a word, masterful. The 21 stories in this 1997 collection, which is encased in black boxes, show Ellison at the height of his powers, with several of the stories (no surprise here) major award-winners. Highlights include a black mind reader who pays a visit to a white serial killer, a husband who falls prey to a vampiric personal computer, and a love affair between a young man and a woman who may be more undead than alive. Perhaps even more fascinating are the painfully candid snapshots of autobiography running throughout the volume. Even if Ellison's unsettling fictions are not enough to dazzle you, his often bizarre life experiences as an author will still keep you compulsively turning the page like a polite voyeur. --Stanley Wiater

Contents:
The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore (1992)
Anywhere but Here, with Anybody but You (1996)
Crazy as a Soup Sandwich (1989)
Darkness upon the Face of the Deep (1991)
The Pale Silver Dollar of the Moon Pays Its Way and Makes Change: Version 1 (1997)
The Pale Silver Dollar of the Moon Pays Its Way and Makes Change: Version 2 (1994)
The Lingering Scent of Woodsmoke (1996)
The Museum on Cyclops Avenue (1995)
Go toward the Light (1996)
Mefisto in Onyx (1993)
Where I Shall Dwell in the Next World (1992)
Chatting with Anubis (1995)
The Few, the Proud (1989)
The Deadly "Nackles" Affair (1987) essay
Nackles (1964)
Nackles (1987)
Sensible City (1994)
The Dragon on the Bookshelf (1995) with Robert Silverberg
Keyboard (1995)
Jane Doe #112 (1990)
The Dreams a Nightmare Dreams (1997)
Pulling Hard Time (1995)
Scartaris, June 28th (1990)
She's a Young Thing and Cannot Leave Her Mother (1988)
Midnight in the Sunken Cathedral (1995)

So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy

★ 4.00

Nalo Hopkinson

So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy is an anthology of original new stories by leading African, Asian, South Asian and Aboriginal authors, as well as North American and British writers of color.

Stories of imagined futures abound in Western writing. Writer and editor Nalo Hopkinson notes that the science fiction/fantasy genre “speaks so much about the experience of being alienated but contains so little writing by alienated people themselves.” It’s an oversight that Hopkinson and Mehan aim to correct with this anthology.

The book depicts imagined futures from the perspectives of writers associated with what might loosely be termed the “third world.” It includes stories that are bold, imaginative, edgy; stories that are centered in the worlds of the “developing” nations; stories that dare to dream what we might develop into.

The wealth of postcolonial literature has included many who have written insightfully about their pasts and presents. With So Long Been Dreaming they creatively address their futures.

Contributors include: Opal Palmer Adisa, Tobias Buckell, Wayde Compton, Hiromi Goto, Andrea Hairston, Tamai Kobayashi, Karin Lowachee, devorah major, Carole McDonnell, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, Eden Robinson, Nisi Shawl, Vandana Singh, Sheree Renee Thomas and Greg Van Eekhout.

Nalo Hopkinson is the internationally-acclaimed author of Brown Girl in the Ring, Skin Folk, and Salt Roads. Her books have been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Tiptree, and Philip K. Dick Awards; Skin Folk won a World Fantasy Award and the Sunburst Award. Born in Jamaica, Nalo moved to Canada when she was sixteen. She lives in Toronto.

Uppinder Mehan is a scholar of science fiction and postcolonial literature. A South Asian Canadian, he currently lives in Boston and teaches at Emerson College.

The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard

Books similar to The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard

The Essential Ellison: A 50 Year Retrospective

The Wind’s Twelve Quarters

The Persistence of Vision

Again, Dangerous Visions

The John Varley Reader

A Fisherman of the Inland Sea

Slippage: Previously Precariously Poised, Uncollected Stories

So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy

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