New Releases by J. G. Ballard

A war-ravaged Beirut is the setting for the title story of this visionary collection, a tale in which a young street fighter inadvertently discovers how to bring an to the bloodshed only to find that his solution is all too effective as far as some supposedly neutral observers are concerned. Other stories feature an assassination plot against an American astronaut, the leader of an authoritarian religious movement; a man who is destroyed by a car crash and resolves never to leave his apartment again; and the survivor of a toxic-waste ship wrecked on a deserted Caribbean island.

A collection of novelist''s non-fiction writings spanning more than thirty years addresses topics including the arts, science, literature, popular culture, and his own life.

Para un foraneo, los britanicos que viven en Estrella de Mar, en una pequena localidad de la Costa del Sol, forman una de las comunidades mas idilicas que puedan imaginar, con un estilo de vida que comprende constantes actividades culturales y deportivas, centradas en un club nautico. Pero esa imagen se pulveriza cuando se desata un incendio en misteriosas circunstancias que se salda con cinco victimas. El director del club, Frank Prentice, es detenido por asesinato. De Londres llega Charles, el hermano de Frank, quien descubre sorprendido que, si bien ni los testimonios ni la policia lo creen responsable del crimen, Frank insiste en autoinculparse. A fin de comprender la actitud de este, Charles resuelve investigar Estrella de Mar y detectara extranas redes de personajes y comportamientos. Bajo la civilizada superficie se esconde un mundo secreto de crimenes, drogas y sexo ilicito, todo orquestado por la carismatica figura del tenista Bobby Crawford. Un mundo de tal poder magnetico que acabara arrastrando al propio Charles... Noches de cocaina es Ballard en estado puro: el que explora el lado oscuro de la psique, el que provoca; el que cuestiona y despedaza la sociedad occidental del siglo XX, llevando al limite el sexo, la violencia, el frenesi y el ansia de poder y seguridad, sinonimo de aislamiento y muerte cultural.

A 35-year-old architect is driving home from his London office when his car swerves and crashes onto a traffic island lying below three converging motorways. Uninjured, he climbs the embankment to seek help, but no one will stop for him and he is trapped on the island, where he remains.

In this sequel to his award-winning Empire of the Sun, young James returns to England at the end of World War II. He stumbles through medical study at Cambridge, trains briefly as an RAF pilot in Canada, and marries. When his wife dies suddenly, Jim is thrust into the violence and sexual promiscuity of the sixties. Penetrating and wise, J. G. Ballard''s biting social commentary and pushing of boundaries make this semi-autobiographical novel a small classic.

The wealthy inhabitants of a luxurious, well-designed apartment complex become engaged in hostilities that begin in the dropping of debris onto lower balconies and climax in drunken, marauding attacks by rival floor tribes

The "Cape Canaveral" stories, eight stories originally published between 1962 and 1985.

Controversial science fiction writer, J.G. Ballard, tells of his unorthodox upbringing in Shanghai in the 1940''s. Ballard has achieved acclaim for works such as Empire of the Sun, and controversy over Crash, which investigates the psychosexual significance of the car crash. The book includes an article on Ballard Mythmaker of the 20th Century by William S. Burroughs, and chapter one of Crash, plus Ballard''s introduction to the French edition.

From one of the most powerful and original talents in science fiction comes the story of a new world--a strange world where solar radiation fluctuations have melted the polar ice caps, flooding the land and raising the temperature of the atmosphere.

Ballard''s genius for imagining exotic places appears again in Vermilion Sands where he creates a fantasy landscape of the future. These stories feature forgotten movie queens and guilt-ridden femmes fatales who exercise their every whim in a culture of unlimited technology.