 Cover of first edition. | |
| Author | J. G. Ballard |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Max Ernst The Eye of Silence 1943-44 |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape |
Publication date | 1966 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 221 |
| Preceded by | The Drought |
| Followed by | The Atrocity Exhibition |
The Crystal World is a science fiction novel by English author J. G. Ballard, published in 1966. [1]
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.
Ballard previously used the theme of apocalyptic crystallisation in the 1964 short story "The Illuminated Man" (included in The Terminal Beach ), which is also set in the same locations.
The protagonist is Edward Sanders, an English medical doctor, who arrives at the river port of Port Matarre, in Cameroon. From here he tries to reach a leprosy treatment facility [2] where his friends, Max and Suzanne Clair, live. Soon, however, he starts to recognize that a mysterious phenomenon is crystallizing the jungle along with its living creatures. [3] The same phenomenon is reported to be present in the Florida everglades and in the Pripyat Marshes (Soviet Union) as well. Scientific explanations of the phenomenon are provided within the book: however, Ballard offers mostly an interior and psychological perspective about it, directly through Sanders' experiences. Several facts, furthermore, remain unexplained: for example, the ability of jewels to liquefy the crystals. The crystals also have the property to keep objects and beings in a suspended state of existence. Many passages deal with this characteristic, pointing out its capability to stop time and life.
In his route towards the deep of the forest, Sanders gets involved in a personal feud between Ventress, a Belgian architect, and Thorensen, the director of a diamond mine. In one of the most striking episodes of the novel, Sanders discovers the reason of the deadly rivalry to be Ventress' former wife, Serena, who is terminally ill with tuberculosis. After a final confrontation, Thorensen decides to remain in his house within the jungle, in spite of the encroaching crystallization process. Two of the other characters met by Sanders in his voyage spontaneously make the same decision: Balthus, an apostate priest, and Suzanne. [4] The latter, nearly gone mad and sporting the first symptoms of leprosy, is portrayed towards the end of the novel as the leader of a band of lepers who set for the interior of the crystallizing forest, clearly to never come back.
After having barely escaped from the now quickly spreading crystallization, Sanders reaches Port Matarre. Here, however, he makes the same decision as Balthus and Suzanne. In the final pages, Sanders goes back to the river to face the same fate as Suzanne.
Richard A. Lupoff described The Crystal World as the best of Ballard's "catastrophe novels," saying it was "Idiosyncratic but highly effective [and] a very important science fiction book." [5]
Crash is a novel by English author J. G. Ballard, first published in 1973 with cover designed by Bill Botten. It is a story about car-crash sexual fetishism: its protagonists become sexually aroused by staging and participating in real car-crashes, inspired by the famous accidents of celebrities.
James Graham Ballard was an English novelist, short story writer, satirist, and essayist known for provocative works of fiction which explored the relations between human psychology, technology, sex, and mass media. He first became associated with the New Wave of science fiction for post-apocalyptic novels such as The Drowned World (1962), but later courted controversy for works such as the experimental short story collection The Atrocity Exhibition (1970), which included the 1968 story "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan", and the novel Crash (1973), a story about a renegade group of car crash fetishists.
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of science fiction, science fantasy, dystopia or horror in which the Earth's civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronomical, such as an impact event; destructive, such as nuclear holocaust or resource depletion; medical, such as a pandemic, whether natural or human-caused; end time, such as the Last Judgment, Second Coming or Ragnarök; or more imaginative, such as a zombie apocalypse, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics or alien invasion.
The Atrocity Exhibition is an experimental novel of linked stories or "condensed novels" by British writer J. G. Ballard.
Cocaine Nights is a 1996 novel by J. G. Ballard. Like Super-Cannes that followed it, it deals with the idea of dystopian resort communities which maintain their seemingly perfect balance via a number of dark secrets.
Otis Adelbert Kline born in Chicago, Illinois, USA, was a songwriter, an adventure novelist and literary agent during the pulp era. Much of his work first appeared in the magazine Weird Tales. Kline was an amateur orientalist and a student of Arabic, like his friend and sometime collaborator, E. Hoffmann Price.
The Wind from Nowhere is a science fiction novel by English author J. G. Ballard. Published in 1961, it was his debut novel. He had previously published only short stories.
Myths of the Near Future is a collection of science fiction short stories by British writer J. G. Ballard, first published in 1982.
The Terminal Beach is a collection of science fiction short stories by British author J. G. Ballard, published in 1964.
The Drowned World is a 1962 science fiction novel by British writer J. G. Ballard. The novel depicts a post-apocalyptic future in which global warming caused by heightened solar radiation has rendered much of the Earth's surface uninhabitable. The story follows a team of scientists researching environmental developments in a flooded, abandoned London. The novel is an expansion of a novella of the same title first published in Science Fiction Adventures magazine in January 1962, Vol. 4, No. 24.
Hello America is a science fiction novel by British writer J. G. Ballard, published in 1981. First edition cover designed by Bill Botten. The plot follows an expedition to a North America rendered uninhabitable by an ecological disaster following an energy crisis.
The Day of Creation is a 1987 novel by British writer J. G. Ballard.
The Kindness of Women is a 1991 novel by British author J. G. Ballard, a sequel to his 1984 novel Empire of the Sun. The Kindness of Women drew on the author's boyhood in Shanghai during World War II, presenting a lightly fictionalized treatment of Ballard's life from Shanghai through to adulthood in England, culminating with an account of the making of Steven Spielberg's 1987 film Empire of the Sun. A non-fiction account of the same experiences can be found in Ballard's autobiography, Miracles of Life.
The Unlimited Dream Company is a novel by British writer J. G. Ballard, first published in 1979. It was nominated for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1980. It won the British Science Fiction Association Award in the same year.
"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.
Miracles of Life is an autobiography written by British writer J. G. Ballard and published in 2008.
"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.
"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.
Billenium is a short story by British author J. G. Ballard, first published in the January 1962 edition of Amazing Stories and in the Billennium collection. 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.
Climate fiction is literature that deals with climate change and global warming. Not necessarily speculative in nature, works may take place in the world as we know it or in the near future. The genre frequently includes science fiction and dystopian or utopian themes, imagining the potential futures based on how humanity responds to the impacts of climate change. Technologies such as climate engineering or climate adaptation practices often feature prominently in works exploring their impacts on society. Climate fiction is distinct from petrofiction which deals directly with the petroleum culture and economy.
