Billenium (or Billennium) is a short story by British author J. G. Ballard, first published in the November 1961 issue of New Worlds and in the 1962 collection Billennium. [1] [2] It later appeared in The Terminal Beach (1964), Chronopolis and Other Stories (1971), and The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard: Volume 1 (2006). With a dystopian ambience, "Billennium" explores themes similar to Ballard's earlier story "The Concentration City", of space shortages and over-crowding.
The story is set in the future (possibly c. 21st century – see billennium) where the world is becoming increasingly overpopulated, with a population of around 20 billion. Most of its inhabitants live in crowded central cities in order to preserve as much outside land as possible for farming, and as a result the world does not have a food problem, nor wars – since all governments devote themselves to addressing the problems caused by overpopulation. In the city inhabited by the two protagonists, John Ward and Henry Rossiter, there is a mass shortage of space and the people live in small cellular rooms where they are charged by ceiling space, the legal maximum decreasing to 3.5 square metres (38 sq ft) per person. The city streets are enormously crowded, resulting in occasional pedestrian congestions that last days at a time. Most old and historical buildings have been taken down to make way for new battery homes or divided into hundreds of small cubicles.
Ward lives in a future dystopian society with his close friend, Rossiter. After being kicked out of their homes, they decide to move in together so that they have space and split the payments. The story revolves around Ward and Rossiter's combined discovery of a secret, larger-than-average room adjacent to their rented cubicle. This is mildly important, as they have never been in a room where there were no people. As the two bask in the extra personal space that they have never known, things become complicated when they allow two other close friends to share the space, and the ensuing snowball effect of their invitees bringing family to live in the room. In the end, the "luxurious" space comes to be the same type of crowded cubicle that they were trying to escape from in the first place. Ward becomes the landlord when there are so many people. He has always hated landlords and thinks that they are greedy and rude. He slowly starts to become what he always hated.
James Graham Ballard was an English novelist and short story writer, satirist and essayist known for psychologically provocative works of fiction that explore the relations between human psychology, technology, sex and mass media. Ballard first became associated with New Wave science fiction for post-apocalyptic novels such as The Drowned World (1962), but later courted political controversy with the short-story collection The Atrocity Exhibition (1970), which includes the story "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan" (1968) and the novel Crash (1973), a story about car-crash fetishists.
Utopian and dystopian fiction are subgenres of science fiction that explore social and political structures. Utopian fiction portrays a setting that agrees with the author's ethos, having various attributes of another reality intended to appeal to readers. Dystopian fiction offers the opposite: the portrayal of a setting that completely disagrees with the author's ethos. Some novels combine both genres, often as a metaphor for the different directions humanity can take depending on its choices, ending up with one of two possible futures. Both utopias and dystopias are commonly found in science fiction and other types of speculative fiction.
Soylent Green is a 1973 American ecological dystopian thriller film directed by Richard Fleischer, and starring Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young, and Edward G. Robinson in his final film role. It is loosely based on the 1966 science-fiction novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison, with a plot that combines elements of science fiction and a police procedural. The story follows a murder investigation in a dystopian future of dying oceans and year-round humidity caused by the greenhouse effect, with the resulting pollution, depleted resources, poverty, and overpopulation. In 1973, it won the Nebula Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film.
The Crystal World is a science fiction novel by English author J. G. Ballard, published in 1966. The novel tells the story of a physician trying to make his way deep into the jungle to a secluded leprosy treatment facility. While trying to make it to his destination, his chaotic path leads him to try to come to terms with an apocalyptic phenomenon in the jungle that crystallises everything it touches.
David Pringle is a Scottish science fiction editor and critic.
The Terminal Beach is a collection of science fiction short stories by British author J. G. Ballard, published in 1964.
Make Room! Make Room! is a 1966 science fiction novel written by Harry Harrison exploring the consequences of both unchecked population growth on society and the hoarding of resources by a wealthy minority. It was originally serialized in Impulse magazine.
The Drowned World (1962), by J. G. Ballard, is a British science fiction novel that depicts a post-apocalyptic future in which global warming, caused by increased solar radiation, has rendered uninhabitable much of the surface of planet Earth. The story follows a team of scientists who are researching the environmental developments occurred in the flooded city of London. The novel is an expansion of the novella "The Drowned World", which was first published in Science Fiction Adventures magazine, in the January 1962 issue, Vol. 4, No. 24.
The 4-Dimensional Nightmare, also known as Voices of Time, is a collection of science fiction short stories by British writer J. G. Ballard, published in 1963 by Victor Gollancz.
"The Voices of Time" is a dystopian science fiction short story by British author J. G. Ballard. It was first published in the October 1960 edition of New Worlds, and later in the 1962 collection The Voices of Time and Other Stories. It is an early example of the Inner Space type of story which drove the New Wave movement in the 1960s. Its primary theme is one which was common in the New Wave, that of entropy and the breakdown of all things.
Memories of the Space Age is a collection of science fiction stories by British writer J. G. Ballard. It was released in 1988 by Arkham House. It was published in an edition of 4,903 copies and was the author's first book published by Arkham House. The stories, set at Cape Canaveral, originally appeared in the magazines Ambit, Fantastic Stories, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Interzone, New Worlds and Playboy.
The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard: Volume 1 is a short story collection by J. G. Ballard, published in 2006.
"The Concentration City" is a dystopian short story by British author J. G. Ballard, first published, under the title "Build-Up", in New Worlds volume 19 number 55 in January 1957. It was reprinted in the collections Billennium and Chronopolis and later, under its revised title, in The Disaster Area and was also included in The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard: Volume 1 and The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard.
"Track 12" is a short story by British author J. G. Ballard, it first appeared in the April 1958 edition of New Worlds. It then appeared in Penguin Science Fiction in 1961, Passport to Eternity, The Venus Hunters, The Overloaded Man, and later in The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard: Volume 1.
"Studio 5, The Stars" is a short story by British author J. G. Ballard. First appearing in the February 1961 edition of Science Fantasy ; it was reprinted in the collection Billennium the following year. It later appeared in The Four-Dimensional Nightmare (1964), Vermilion Sands (1971) and The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard (2006).
"Deep End" is a short story written in 1961 by British author J. G. Ballard. It first appeared in the May 1961 edition of New Worlds and then in the 1962 collection The Voices of Time and Other Stories followed by The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard: Volume 1 in 2006. The tale is typical of Ballard's dystopian science fiction.
"Minus One" is a short story by British author J. G. Ballard; it was first published in the June 1963 edition of Science Fantasy. It was later reprinted in the 1967 collection The Disaster Area, and then later in the larger The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard: Volume 1 anthology (2006).
"The Sound-Sweep" is a short story by British writer J. G. Ballard. It was first published in Science Fantasy, Volume 13, Number 39, February 1960 and was reprinted in the collection The Four-Dimensional Nightmare.
Tales in Space is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Peter Crowther. It was first published as a trade paperback by White Wolf Publishing in April 1998. It was issued as a companion to Three in Space from the same publisher; the two books followed up a similar pair, Three in Time and Tales in Time, published in 1997.
Constellations: Stories of the Future (1980) is a science fiction anthology of short stories edited by Malcolm Edwards and published by Gollancz.