Book Review: 'The Disaster Area' by J. G. Ballard
'The Disaster Area' is a 1967 anthology of short stories, originally published by Ballard in the interval from 1957 to 1966 in various UK magazines and digests, such as New Worlds. Several paperback editions of 'Disaster' have been released over the years, and many of the earlier releases are rare and costly. This Flamingo / Harper Collins paperback (191 pp.) was issued in 1992 and is one of the more easily acquired editions.
Needless to say, the stories in 'Disaster' mostly are set in a near-future version of the UK, and all are downbeat and dystopian. The plotting is restrained and the reader is obliged to parse things out, as Ballard prefers to be 'elliptical' in doling out revelations. His prose is superior to most of that appearing in American sci-fi stories of the same era; the pulp mannerisms that filled American stories utterly are absent from Ballard's fiction.
My capsule summaries of the contents:
Storm-Bird, Storm-Dreamer: in a bleak and watery landscape, a small group of UK residents cope with the aftermath of strange war between mankind, and overly large birds. There is an emphasis on mood and atmosphere and, neccessarily, Entropy.
Concentration City (aka Build-Up): in the future, the entire world is one big city, with buildings miles high crammed alongside one another.
The Subliminal Man: the future is a nightmare of unchecked Capitalism, given over to conspicuous consumption and pervasive advertising. Even phone calls are interrupted by five-second audio commercials - !
I found this concept quite disturbing, but it wouldn't surprise me if the telecommunications industry is contemplating it, here and now in this 21st century..........
Now Wakes the Sea: Mason has vivid dreams in which his placid suburb is submerged by rising seas. Is this an emergent, racial memory from the deep past, or a premonition ? A contemplative story with the introspective sensibility characteristic of postwar-era science fiction in the UK.
Minus One: a patient is missing from Green Hill Asylum, and he must be found straightaway or the local authorities will have to be notified; this would not be good.
Mr. F is Mr. F: the eponymous mister is the mild-mannered Charles Freeman, married to the formidable Elizabeth. Her pregnancy promises good things for the family, at least, that is until something strange begins to happen to Charles. This is the oddest story in the collection, and arguably a progenitor of modern-day 'weird horror' fiction.
Zone of Terror: at a hospitable institute that treats businessmen suffering from mental strain, Advanced Designs Division staffer Larsen is failing to improve. Dr, Bayliss, his therapist, refuses to believe Larsen's accounts of seeing interlopers on the grounds of the facility. Are these observations the product of an unwell mind, or something more sinister ? Ballard leaves it up the reader to judge.
Manhole 69: psychology researcher Neilssen has lobotomized three men as part of a daring experiment to see what happens when humans no longer require sleep, the idea being that humans freed from the obligation to spend one-third of their lives unconscious will be able to do so much more in life. However, what the trio experience is something more disturbing than liberating. Another story where Ballard leaves it to the reader to decide if events are 'real,' or illusion.
The Impossible Man: a boy named Conrad is one of the few children in a senescent UK occupied by elderly people. This tale relies on an atmosphere of increasing disquiet to generate its impact.
Summing up, I award 'The Disaster Area' a Three Star Rating. Its content compares quite favorably to the other material published in the sci-fi genre in the 1950s and 1960s, but Ballard's penchant for obliquity likely is not going to go over all that well with 21st century readers........
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