Loved it: disturbing, intriguing, thought provoking. A group of authors I love at their best
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I requested this on Netgalley despite not actually being that into Ballard, which may seem perverse, but it has contributions from various other writers I like: Iain Sinclair, Will Self, Michael Moorcock are all listed on the cover. Granted, in at least two of those cases I don't like their current stuff as much as the older material, but obligingly they all go back to basics here; Will Self drops the modernist elder statesman bit for his old glee in being shocking, and this is the first time in ages that I've seen Sinclair write about Driffield. Moorcock, of course, has been doing new Jerry Cornelius vignettes for a while, but when you've already created an avatar for times of perpetual collapse, it would be the wrong kind of perverse not to set him running in what passes for the present.

And really, it's not quite that I don't like Ballard, more that he did one very particular thing extremely well, and that even at the length of a short novel, it generally got a bit much for me, although given it was something like a disaffected, clinical eye upon the world, it could sometimes translate extremely well into a camera's gaze, which is why I'd probably take the films of Crash and (apart from the stupid ending) High-Rise over any of the original texts. Curiously, the one place I've seen physical copies of this collection was in the BFI bookshop, a prominent display which seemed odd when it's not ostensibly a book with that strong a cinema connection, but which on a deeper level confirmed my suspicion. And then there's Paul di Filippo's contribution here, in which Ballard washes up in LA after the War, and after a recommendation from Roger Corman ends up making films in the same milieu, with another historical figure along for the ride (I initially thought two, but no, turns out there really was a cameraman called Fred West working there).

Reading this collection, I started to wonder if Ballard wasn't a bit like Mark E Smith. Not just in the sense of being a prolific figure with a reliable point of view, still seen as somehow countercultural despite being firmly ensconced in the canon, and thus absolute catnip to a certain sort of mostly male fan. But because I know a Fall tribute band, the Fallen Women, who perform with a different guest vocalist for each track, and the remarkable thing is that whoever that may be, whether it's my spouse or my mates or a celebrity I like or just some random drunk bloke, I like every last one of them more than the originals. And similarly, this has writers I like and writers I used to like and writers I don't know from Adam, and even when they don't quite capture that beady eye, I think I enjoyed all of their Ballards more than actual Ballard*. Sometimes more than them as themselves, too: Jeff Noon's time travel car crash story here is the first thing of his I've liked in a decade; Christopher Fowler was a writer whose good bits always drew me on through the many things that annoyed me in his work, but I don't think his contribution here, presumably some of his final writing, irked me once. I mean, yes, outside this context I'd probably have said its closest kin was Victor Pemberton's The Slide, but fuck it, it's set in a luxury resort, that's Ballard enough. Perhaps the secret is in Selflessness by David Gordon, one of the contributors I'd not encountered before, which suggests a common root for so much human malaise: "the self sort of swells up, becomes irritated and painful, just like any organ that is inflamed or infected." Treated in the story through a drug trial, but here through writing in the world of someone else for a while, and that someone as detached as Ballard. Curiously, even then some of the obvious signifiers aren't the ones people go for. Sure, there are lots of brittle gated communities, and writers pick up on some of the ways that the modern world feels more Ballard than ever - weird weather; AI as it actually is rather than the classic SF version; shortages and a sense of the precarious, even in nominally affluent countries and communities. Other opportunities, though, aren't seized - I was sure there'd be a riff on the Fyre Festival, but no, and there's a surprising extension of contemporary fiction's wider reluctance to deal with mobiles. OK, Ramsey Campbell puts one at the heart of his story, but that's more a Black Mirror approach than simply accounting for their casual ubiquity. Most shocking of all, especially given the title, is how few contributors go for the peak Ballard of an empty swimming pool - though given the exception is by one of the editors, maybe it was less that they didn't want to go the overly obvious route, more that he simply warned everyone else he'd bagsied those. But given the parameters of the assignment, I think my favourite has to be the one piece which outright takes the piss, Geoff Nicholson's Drift - a (literally) pedestrian Crash with Elizabeth Taylor's role taken by Olivia Colman.

*OK, maybe not The January 6, 2021 Washington DC Riot Considered As A Black Friday Sale, by Pat Cadigan, which would be a perfect title for a Ballardian story referenced and never seen, but which can't quite work itself out beyond occasional glimmers like the significance of 'the customer is always right', and a delightful comparison of the tangerine fraudster to Beanie Babies.

A collection of short stories inspired by J G Ballard. Of the selection, only a third gripped me though the writing powerful. Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc.

A varied collection honoring Ballard, with lesser known artists and bigger ones like Michael Moorcock, Pat Cadigan, and Lavie Tidhar. The stories by these last two were my favorite.

This is a collection of short stories from some very famous writers. The title intrigued me. Like many science fiction fans, I am a fan of Ballard. Coming from a psychological background myself, his style has always hooked me. The Drowned World holds a special place in my heart, as it was one of the very first Science Fiction books I ever read as a child. So, when I saw the book I was drawn in. Then when I read the introduction, I was drawn in further. There is a table of contents which is good, and clickable links which most anthologies I have read omit.
But while I was going from story to story, I continued to ask myself, why am I reading stories inspired by Ballard? I have read Ballard, and they were great short stories, and great novels, he captured my attention, and although of course writers are inspired and assimilate styles etc, why was there an anthology dedicated to stories inspired by him?
Imitation is the highest form of flattery, and here are writers which have already succeeded in the industry. It is nice how they are paying homage to such a great Science Fiction writer, but if you want Ballard, go to Ballard, read his works, and short stories. Here, I was disappointed. I cannot help thinking that the publisher is boiling down the craft of writing. These writers have assimilated everything they have ever read and have become something different. They all have unique styles, but to channel in to one aspect of their inspiration, just felt wrong to me.
Few stories grabbed me. I would have valued forewords from the authors to read about how Ballard inspired them and why they chose a particular vein of inspiration. I would have appreciated the writers telling me where they got their inspiration from, what works do they think Ballard influenced them on, why they chose this story and what aspect of Ballard do they most enjoy. But without forewords there was none of this. I feel like I missed out. I didn’t feel the passion, I did not feel the energy from the stories.
I wondered if there were new writers, if the anthology was a giant helping hand to those struggling in the industry, but when I reached the back of the book, it seemed a lot of these writers had already been published and were decorated with awards. I have talked about this in previous reviews. Especially since the industry is becoming so hard to break into nowadays, why do these anthologies not help those up and comers? Why not have a portion dedicated to new writers?
There is a mix of stories here, a range of styles. The introduction states that there is no one theme that all stories follow. There was one, which was an inside out version of Super-Cannes. Paradise Marina by James Lovegrove. It was amusing to see, and I continued reading because I wanted to see how the writer would imitate Highrise in such a short story.
However, I was disappointed throughout. Nothing hooked me. But I suppose this is a testament to Ballard. No matter how many people may try to imitate him, no matter how many people are inspired by him, there was only one Ballard. It’s brilliant there are books still being published about him, encouraging a new wave of readers to go, “Who is that?” I hope more people pick up his works from this anthology and have the same moments of enjoyment I had when reading Ballard’s work.
I applaud the publisher for doing an anthology like this, I would like to see more from them, with anthologies promoting ideas that have been created by other writers – but I want to see more new writers being included in these anthologies. I know they will inject a passion and enthusiasm that can only be brought by someone on the first step of the ladder.