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A User's Guide to the Millennium
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Ballard's extreme experiment - bizarre & brilliant
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Millennium People
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Overall
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Performance
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Never got good.
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The Crystal World
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Through a 'leaking' of time, the West African jungle starts to crystallize. Trees are metamorphosed into enormous jewels. Crocodiles encased in second glittering skins lurch down the river. Pythons with huge blind gemstone eyes rear in heraldic poses. Fearing this transformation as a herald of the apocalypse, most flee the area in terror, afraid to face a catastrophe they cannot understand. But some, dazzled and strangely entranced, remain to drift through this dreamworld forest.
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Couldn't finish
- By Aa-bomb on 04-14-15
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The Complete Short Stories
- By: J. G. Ballard
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrrom, William Gaminara, Sean Barrett, and others
- Length: 63 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A collection of 98 enthralling and pulse-quickening stories, spanning five decades, venerates the remarkable imagination of J. G. Ballard. With a body of work unparalleled in twentieth-century literature, J. G. Ballard is recognized as one of the greatest and most prophetic writers in the world. With the much-hailed release of The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard, readers now have a means to celebrate the unmatched range and mesmerizing cadences of a literary genius.
-
-
Incredible collection but flawed by voice actors
- By S. Rowell on 02-26-17
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High-Rise
- By: J. G. Ballard
- Narrated by: Tom Hiddleston
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
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Story
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So Disturbing
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Works on all levels
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Empire of the Sun
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Abridged version kind of ruins it.
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Hello America
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Following the energy crisis of the late 20th century, America has been abandoned. Now, a century later, a small group of European explorers returns to the now climatically mutated continent. But America is unrecognizable - the Bering Strait has been dammed and much of the country has become a desert, populated by isolated natives and the bizarre remnants of a disintegrated culture. The expedition sets off from Manhattan on a cross-country journey, through Holiday Inns and abandoned theme parks, to uncover a shocking new power in the heart of Las Vegas.
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If you like Ballard, don't buy this audibook!
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Kingdom Come
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A violent novel filled with insidious twists, Kingdom Come follows the exploits of Richard Pearson, a rebellious, unemployed advertising executive, whose father is gunned down by a deranged mental patient in a vast shopping mall outside Heathrow Airport.
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who is making these narrator calls?
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Magnificent
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The Day of Creation
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On the arid, war-plagued terrain of central Africa, a manic doctor is consumed with visions of transforming the Sahara into a land of abundance. But Dr. Mallory’s obsession quickly spirals dangerously out of control.
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Sooner or later, everything turns into television
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Dubbed the greatest horror story in English by Stephen King, The Great God Pan is an eerie and otherworldly mystery about a diabolical operation and its terrifying repercussions. After rescuing a young woman from the streets of London, Dr. Raymond uses her as a test subject for brain surgery aimed at "lifting the veil" of reality, to see the supernatural and the "great god Pan". The operation is a disaster and leaves the subject lobotomized. Years later, London becomes afflicted with a strange series of male suicides connected to a beautiful but sinister woman.
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Wonderful Performance of Fantastic Tales
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The Lathe of Heaven
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In a future world racked by violence and environmental catastrophes, George Orr wakes up one day to discover that his dreams have the ability to alter reality. He seeks help from Dr. William Haber, a psychiatrist who immediately grasps the power George wields. Soon George must preserve reality itself as Dr. Haber becomes adept at manipulating George's dreams for his own purposes.
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Amazing!
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How Music Works
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Art Eats Itself
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The Clockwork Universe
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The Clockwork Universe is the story of a band of men who lived in a world of dirt and disease but pictured a universe that ran like a perfect machine. A meld of history and science, this book is a group portrait of some of the greatest minds who ever lived as they wrestled with natures most sweeping mysteries. The answers they uncovered still hold the key to how we understand the world.
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Calculus Ergo Modernity
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Ubik
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Glen Runciter runs a lucrative business - deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. But when he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in "half-life," a dreamlike state of suspended animation. Soon, though, the surviving members of the team begin experiencing some strange phenomena, such as Runciter's face appearing on coins and the world seeming to move backward in time.
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A great performance of an SF classic
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Writing Creative Nonfiction
- By: Tilar J J. Mazzeo, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Tilar J J. Mazzeo
- Length: 12 hrs and 16 mins
- Original Recording
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Bringing together the imaginative strategies of fiction storytelling and new ways of narrating true, real-life events, creative nonfiction is the fastest-growing part of the creative writing world. It's a cutting-edge genre that's reshaping how we write (and read) everything from biographies and memoirs to blogs and public speaking scripts to personal essays and magazine articles.
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Fiction! Nonfiction! You Name It!
- By Gillian on 05-05-15
Publisher's Summary
A collection of the author's articles and reviews, giving an insight into some of the most important literary, artistic, and scientific movements and events of the last 30 years.
J. G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai, where his father was a businessman. After internment in a civilian prison camp, he and his family returned to England in 1946. He published his first novel, The Drowned World, in 1961. His 1984 best seller Empire of the Sun won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was later filmed by Steven Spielberg. His memoir Miracles of Life was published in 2008. J.G. Ballard died in 2009.
Critic Reviews
“Ballard’s prescience about technological development seems mostrously acute. Like H. G. Wells talking to an audience of the 1900s, he gives an impression not only knowing what the future will be like, but of actually relishing its arrival. As well as the prescience and the clear autobiographer’s eye, we should also value J. G. Ballard for his sense of humour” (D J. Taylor, Independent)
“In a shrinking world increasingly bereft of original imaginations, J. G. Ballard stands alone, a bizarre visionary maverick. Cinema, surrealist painting, crime, the future, madness, sf and China - these a Ballard’s specialist subjects. Best of all in this eccentric, relaxed, always readable collection are his laconic wartime memories, the treasure house he kept locked for forty years” (Eileen Battersby, Irish Times)
“For the reader, pleasure derives largely from coming on the unexpected on every other page, and from randomly discovering new insights into familiar topics, or introductions to unfamiliar ones. Ballard’s cool sardonic gaze, eyeing the absurdities of the late twentieth century through the distancing science-fictional viewfinder, renders tragedy almost amusing” (Times Literary Supplement)
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- James
- 04-03-16
For completists but..
... that is not a criticism as such. Ballard's ideas are best expressed in his novels, and this collection of reviews over the years can be repetitious; however, they are read by Sean Barrett - which, generally, is all an audible book requires to satisfy.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful
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- Ram McD
- 04-24-18
A listeners guide to a users guide
What made the experience of listening to A User's Guide to the Millennium the most enjoyable?
Great narration that perfectly suited the tone & style of these essays
What did you like best about this story?
This is a collection of essays throughout Ballards career, there is no story as such, however much of what he discusses here appears in his fiction- and often is just as delightfully written & perceived.
In many ways this works as a series of footnotes to all his fiction.
What does Sean Barrett bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?
He's so good you can imagine he wrote these himself - or if you knew no better, that his voice is JG Ballards.
Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
There is a lot humor that infuses all Ballards work & this is no exception. It should certainly make you laugh, while raising often very serious & sometimes terrifying points & plumbing deeply disturbing insights.
Any additional comments?
This is not a audio-book that you could listen to in one sitting.
Ballards work is very rich & specific with its terminology. He will use a few 'resonant' words to paint a large view that many lesser writers will use half a page to envision.
These pieces are all quite short, yet abundant in quirky & penetrating ideas & observation. It's probably best to consider them for a while after listening....Maybe a handful at most in one sitting.
The book is arranged into chapters of related topics- for example 'film & art' to begin with, which includes brilliant essays on Surrealism & Dali - that could be considered his own manifesto. These originally appeared in the 1960's New Worlds Anthology/Books just as he began his more experimental phase. These pieces alone make this a worthwhile listen.
The fact that they share company with so many other brilliant pieces make this essential for anyone who's read most (or all) of Ballards fiction.