This magnificent collection of stories was first published in 1971. Although this book frequently shows up on lists of the greatest books of all time in that genre, it is not science fiction so much as a vision of possible forms that the arts could take in the future. It is more futuristic fantasy than science fiction. This volume marked J. G. Ballard's maturation as an author. Before this work, much of his work had been highly inventive but more mainstream science fiction. More specifically, he specialized in novels along the theme "this is the way the world ends." For instance, THE DROWNED WORLD concerns the fate of individuals living in tropical London after the polar ice caps have melted, leaving much of the world underwater. In THE WIND FROM NOWHERE a never-ceasing wind destroys the planet by blowing away all the soil and making agriculture and most other forms of human endeavor impossible.

What makes VERMILLION SANDS is the sheer inventiveness of the world he imagines. It is a cheap, tacky world, not unlike a tawdry Las Vegas or Palm Springs, populated by futuristic artists and cultural has-beens. The art forms that Ballard imagines are brilliant, and feel far more familiar thirty years later than they must have felt to those in the early 1970s. After all, computers and the Internet and digitalization has constantly forced us to rethink the possibilities and forms of art. Ballard describes architecture that responds to the emotional experiences of its inhabitants and imparts some of that feeling back to those entering it. He imagines machines rather than people producing poetry, on long ticker tape like rolls of paper. Plants that sing. Sculptors who work with clouds as their preferred medium. And Ballard manages to meld these strange new arts perfectly into the lives of a rich and fascinating, if also rather sad and tragic, group of characters.

This book is, at the time that I am writing this, out of print. But it has over the years come back in print on a few occasions. I am certain that it will again. It is without question a much more interesting book than many of his that are currently in print, and if there is any justice it will once again be made available. Until then, it is well worth searching out.

this book deserves five stars because it tells kids about how things will still be the same if they become a older sister or brother to someone. Most kids worry about how life will be different with a new baby on the way.

I bought this book soon after the hype brought on by the film. I have always been a history fan. The stories surrounding the fate of the Titanic have always intrigued me.

I knew of Ballard from previous expeditions that he had done. I have seen his work on The Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel.

This book is well thought out. From the search in the early days to the actual discovery and exploration. It's amazing how Ballard was able to stick with it over the years and the difficult times.

The book is written more as a story than as a text book. Plenty of history. The underwater photos are magnificent. I read the book and just wonder at all the problems that they had to overcome. The setbacks. The failures. It's all here in an easy to read and follow book.

If you are at all interested in the Titanic and it's discovery, this is a good book to read.

If you love maritime history and deep-sea adventure, this book is a great place to learn about the most prolific ocean explorer of our time, Dr Robert Ballard. Since her sinking, the Titanic had hidden in the depths of the Atlantic, never to be found, the experts said. But Dr Ballard had the drive to use the newest technology and modern techniques to search for and survey this famous ship. This book is a fascinating first-hand account of the difficulties inherent in deep-sea exploration but proves that maritime history can be unlocked from the deep. Read this book and learn more about the single most important maritime discovery in our time.

It was a well done book by Dr.Ballard if you every want quick but good info this is the book to read!!!!! Submited by Desiree H

This book is impressive because of the way the author combines the diary and her own research to complement it. The result is that the reader gets an insightful look into what daily life was like for Martha who lived in the late 18th and early 19th century. In most history books one can learn about the big events that happened during a certain time period, but it is rare to understand how people actually lived. Reading this book one sees how much time women spent on daily chores. Because Martha was a midwife and helped the sick, there is also interesting descriptions of how she would treat people and how this differed from how a doctor would treat people. Some incidents touched upon in her diary were extremely interesting and show us that there were similar scandals then as there are today. While some of the details of Martha's daily life are tedious to read, they are helpful in understanding how she lived. Her diary also lacks emotional insight and remains descriptive and impartial, which makes it less entertaining, but no less historically valuable.

Thanks to gifted historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, I hear the voice of Martha Ballard as she goes about her productive, meaningful life in late 1700s Massachusetts. I also feel her shining, transcedent spirit nearby as I read. Martha's diary is filled with the cycle of neverending chores that still characterize the lives of women today. As caretakers, we cook, launder, clean, over and over again. Martha's diary also opens our eyes to the lot of our earlier sisters as they lived through (if fortunate, they lived) an 18-month to two year cycle of pregnancy, birth, and lactation.

Martha ministers to them both in body and spirit; and the entire, closely bonded community of post-colonial wives and mothers is depicted in her story.

"I returned home at 10 hour morn, find my house alone and everything in Arms. Did not find time to still down till 2 pm." How this still resonates as women try combine work in the outside world with the unrelenting demands of domesticity!

Kudoes to Laurel Thatcher Ulrich for this brilliantly edited, extremely necessary part of American history---a woman's life as told by observant, compassionate, hard-working Martha Ballard. Ulrich has included statistics of maternal and infant mortality that cause one to question the wisdom of the "heroic intervention" style of obstetrics that came later: Martha experienced only about a 4% loss rate, which stands up impressively until the days when antibiotics reduced the mortality rate to insignificance.

Ulrich's book is a moving account in an underexplored area of American History--the lives and economies of early American women. This book is a double triumph--Martha Ballard kept a detailed diary for almost three decades and Ulrich rescued the dairy from oblivion to create a luminous work of scholarship. This book was moving and engaging beyond almost any work of history I have ever read. Nothing else I have ever read has given me a better feeling of what it would be like to live as a woman in those days. What a triumph!

Not only is this book beautifully illustrated, it is also beautifully written. Detailing the history of an age long gone, it brings the reader back to a time where shipbuilding and transatlantatic crossings were the blossoming industries of a developing world. And, as the title indicates, it travels through the greatest maritime disasters of history. I devoured this book -- it was one of the most fascinating things I have ever read. The illustrations are breathtaking and horrifically beautiful. It details the sinkings and destructions of the Andrea Doria, the Empress of Ireland, the Britannic, the Lusitania, and the Normandie. It also provides information about ships that did not sink, such as the White Star Line's "Old Reliable" Olympic, and the Cunard beauty Mauretania. And, since the book is by Robert Ballard, the reader is also privy to information about the discovery of each wreck.

I got the book in a bout post-Titanic-movie excitement. I didn't learn much about the Titanic incident although the pictures are breathtaking. This book has an excellent history of ocean liners from the 1850s through the 1960s in a nutshell, well illustrated with pictures and photographs and was quite informative on other shipwrecks and incidents, including Titanic-twins Britannic and Olympic, on the Lusitania, Andrea Doria, and others. Excellent coffee table book that has generated a lot of excitement from my guests.

Before the age of flight, the only way to cross the vast oceans was by boat-large ones that could hold thousands of people. Ocean liners. Companies from Cunard, to the White Star Line began to try to outdo each other by building the largest, fastest, and most luxurious liner in the world. One by one, ships like the Lusitania, Titanic and Olympic made its debut. And one by slow one, they soon sank into the waters they were made to sail on. However is that all we hear on this long forgotten mode of transportation? Lusitania-sunk by a German U-boat in 1915? Titanic-sunk by an iceberg Sunday/Monday April 14/15 1912? This book explores these boats and many others you rarely hear of. Normandie, Andrea Doria, Empress of Ireland, and Titanic's long forgotten sister: Britannic. As these ships sunk they opened up a new era of exploration. Included in this book is full in-depth reports of the ships and their legacy. Also a report on the discovery and exploration of the ship's ruined hulls. As with other books and articles by Robert Ballard, these books will really keep you involved with a subject almost long forgotten.

Overall, this book does a good job of telling the story of the re-discovery of the carrier Yorktown, which was lost in the Battle of Midway in June, 1942. The book also gives a pretty good, albeit slimmed down, account of the battle, as well as talking to veterans of the battle who are still alive today. The only problem I have with this book is that very little of the book is actually devoted to illustrating the Yorktown (either in words or pictures) as she appears today, resting on the floor of the ocean. Out of 200 pages in the book, maybe 25 are actually used to show the results of the discovery, and I would really have enjoyed more of this material. Regardless, this is a good book, and should be a welcome addition to the collection of any World War II or nautical enthusiast.

In June 1942, off the coast of midway island, a badly outnumbered american carrier force utterly destroyed a larger japanese force. The cost was Japan: Four carriers and a crusier. The american loss was the carrier yorktown and a destroyer. The japaneses never launched an offensive again. In May 1998, Dr. Robert Ballard, the man who has explored the wrecks of the Titanic, Bismarck, Lusitania, Britannic and ships lost in Iron Bottom Sound off Guadalcanal, discovered the U.S.S Yorktown after a long, grueling expedition. Filled with photos and illustrations from both the battle and the expedition, Bob Ballard has done it again.

Bob Ballard again uses his expertise and access to cutting-edge technology to explore an underwater historical treasure. There are few moments in the 20th Century as critical as the Battle of Midway, yet prior to this expedition little or no attention has been paid to the lasting physical artifacts of that battle scattered on the sea floor. As always seems to be the case with Ballard's expeditions, the only regret is that he was not able to search the area longer and find more of the carriers ... but hopefully there's another expedition in the works!

I got this book in a used bookstore in Vermont and perhaps it illuminated Ballard moreso than criticism, etc. ever could. This tells about his life from the end of "Empire..." until the eighties and.... hmmm.... well... explains a lot about where he was drawing source material from for books like "The Atrocity Exhibition" which, without this, seems a little bit more extreme than perhaps with it it is.

Aside from that, it is an engaging story. You care about the characters, and you care about the author. You meet people and see things and have a good time.....

I would suggest this book as not something for someone who is just looking for a read but more for someone who is into Ballard and wants clarification... and details... about him....

Empire of the Sun was one of the best examples of putting your life up to a critical analysis and staring unflinchingly at it . . . Ballard's portrayal of himself during World War II as a child has to rank as one of the more honest (even when it's not so flattering) attempts at a self-charactization that I can really only compare to Norman Mailer's Armies of the Night. Here he continues his own story, using the first person this time out and extending the narrative past World War II and nearly into his present. The beginning is a bit off for those who have read Empire of the Sun since some of the details gone over don't seem to coincide with the events we learned in the previous book but he manages to again evoke its' dreamlike qualities. From there it's mostly episodic and carried by Ballard's keen eye for events and gift for description, through his eyes the sixties and beyond become almost a shared hallucination, something that you wake up from and you're not sure if it really happened or not. There's no overarching narrative to the book, though his quest to overcome the wounds that were opened by his time in the internment camp is a running theme that partly gets resolved in the end, during the time of the making of the Empire of the Sun movie. Still, like real life there are jagged loose ends, lost characters and a graceful melancholy that holds everything together well. Perhaps the only complaint are the sex scenes, far from offensive, they seem almost cold and sterile, like Ballard was sitting there taking notes during the acts themselves, which could be the point for all I know. Because it covers so much more time it doesn't have the searing focus that the previous novel did, but the wide variety of events and times are engaging in their own right and just when you think Ballard has exhausted his ability to put a new spin on describing things, he pulls another effortless phrase out that can't help but stick in your head. A book you probably have to experience more than read, those coming out of Empire of the Sun wanting to see more will probably come away satisfied.

'The Kindness of Women' is one of the most extraordinary books I have ever read - it gripped me with the shock of seeing deep into a man's hurt but inspired psyche, it left me weeping in pity for Ballard and marvelling at his survival. And laughing out loud. The account of Ballard's life after Singapore, this is no ordinary narrative autobiography - rather, a series of chapters each of which might stand as a small masterpiece alone, each like the fragment of a smashed mirror reflecting a piece of Ballard's life in microcosm - his wife and her tragic death, his friends, his children (the chapter called 'Magic World' should open every 'anthology of happiness' ever published), his involvement with the 60s through his crashed car exhibition (out of which came Crash, the basis of Cronenburg's film) and his fascination with television. Women provide the linking thread through it all - the ones who Ballard loved, made love to, or in turn loved him - his wife, Miriam, most unforgettably. But the key is an account of a man coming to terms with himself and his violent childhood - in the end what one leaves this book with is a sense of the kindness of Ballard. For this beautiful, modest, deceptively simple book, shot through with images and symbols of suffering, pain, madness and death, is in the end, more than any of his other books, a celebration of life, of love, of friends and of people. Towards the end, Ballard remarks how it had taken him most of his life to realise how these simple things were what made him happy - the rest were just dross. For anyone who has ever questioned their life, or felt great pain in their heart or in their soul, or experienced suffering of any kind - this book offeres the promise of redemption and catharsis. READ IT. It is a work for us all, a book of which one can truly say it has enriched the world. Thank you, James.

Allen Ballard knows how to tell a good story. His characters come alive as we accompany them through the tragic events in 1864-1865 western Mississippi. Both white and black characters come across as real people, and I was sorry to leave them when the book was all-too-soon finished.

My Book Group read this book last month and thought it was terrific. The book did an excellent job describing what life in the south was like (for both soldiers and civilians - particularly the women) during the Civil War. It was an interesting read and it really made us "feel" life at that time. I had to put down the book a couple times as I got so emotionally involved with the characters and their lives. I'd strongly recommend this to historical fiction buffs. I don't think it is a book only for folks interested in black history - I would recommend it to all. I am very impressed that this is the first novel this author has written and I'll keep my eyes out for more by him.

"Where I'm Bound", is a work of historically-based fiction by Mr. Allen B. Ballard documenting the 180,000 African American Men who fought for the Union Army during this Nation's Civil War. Like the "Buffalo Soldiers" who served this Country in its Western Frontier, the 1,000 commissioned officers in World War I, the 370,000 "Doughboys" of World War I, or the Tuskegee Airman of World War II fighter pilot fame, these men and women fought and died for ideas and beliefs for which they have never been fully rewarded.

Rewarded may be the wrong word, perhaps recognition was all they sought. The tragedy of what they sought was something that their white counterparts took for granted, or in some cases took away from them. These African-American Soldiers were in some instances freedmen, in other, slaves who had escaped and then joined the Union Army to march directly back and fight those who enslaved them. They fought to reunite their families, they fought for what they were told would be waiting for them if the Union won, they fought for what the white men they fought and died with had enjoyed under the words, "we hold these truths to be self evident". The truths were self evident if you were white, male, and owned property. If you did not meet these criteria the words were as meaningless then as they are today.

Mr. Ballard recreates the horror of hand-to-hand fighting that was often a part of any given battle in this Country's Civil War. His story is fiction, however it is based upon real individuals that lived and fought, and the battles they fought and gave their lives in. His story contains all that was insidious in this war, however he also brings balance by depicting events that this reader did not expect to have actually happened. The events resolved themselves as one would hope they would, and that was why they were surprising to read, and an even greater surprise to read they are historically accurate.

Those who believed he was their savior refer to President Abraham Lincoln repeatedly in this book. They believed he was going to make them citizens a century after they had been excluded from the populace unless counted as property. What would they have felt, and how would they have fought if they knew this same President, "did not believe blacks and whites could live together"?

There were 180,000 black soldiers in the Union Army. How many African Americans do you see when the reenactments of some of the battles take place? How many paintings by those who chronicle that period of History celebrate the blood that was shed that was as red as any, but valued less because of its source?

If there were a vantage point from which those who have died can see what has resulted from their sacrifice, what changes would they see and what it is they died for, how would they feel? Their decision to fight and in their moment of death they may have indeed been free. But did their deaths bring the freedom they thought they were dying for? The answer is pathetic, as any cursory review of the century following the end of the Civil War will show.

This is an important book that I hope will cause the writing of many more. History is only as worthwhile as it is complete and accurate. African Americans, Native Americans, and other minorities have fought and died for the freedom we all enjoy. Because of books like this History becomes more valuable, for if you were to judge the contributions of African Americans by the number of monuments that have been raised to honor them, you would think they were barely present, much less a powerful positive element in the history of this Country.

If you are looking for a love story with a "kick," then Ballard's latest is the novel for you. With engaging characters and an intriguing plot, this work is entertaining and a must read for those who just want to relax and enjoy fiction as it was meant to be. The author easily holds your attention as the story unwinds and the chapters fly by. Jack Kincaid and Gabriella Newman, who carry the storyline, were distined to find one another and, in doing so, become involved in a plot that moves from Florida to Colorado to Virginia and finally lands in California. Entwined in all of this relocation is the FBI, a near fatal shooting, alaises, drug dealing, a trip to Mexico, a pregnancy, a coulpe of college campuses, a plot twist here and a plot twist there, . . . Add a lime, a dash of salt and a shot of tequila and this plot spins so quickly you won't be able to put 1-4-3 Means I Love You down. Oh, and did I mention the ending? You won't want to miss this as Ballard wraps up his fast-paced novel on a football field where good guys and bad guys exchange "unplesantries," and we're talking more than bad language, here. Trully a romantic love story with an action-packed plot that will leave you anxiously awaiting the next in what this reader hopes will be a number of Jack Kincaid stories. Have a good read!!!

"1-4-3 Means I Love You" by Jon Ballard, should be read by anyone who enjoys love, action or mystery stories. This book contains all three in a plot that continues to thicken. There is not a dull page in this novel. You cain't put it down. The ending leaves you wanting for more. Perhaps a sequel?

es una historia de mucha accion, personajes vividos, envolviendo una gran pasion de amor!
Buena suerte sr. ballard..

And it's more affordable than the used editions sold here!.....

J.G. Ballard's 1975 novel "High Rise" contains all of the qualities we have come to expect from this author: alarming psychological insights, a study of the profoundly disturbing connections between technology and the human condition, and an intriguing plot masterfully executed. Ballard, who wrote the tremendously troubling "Crash," really knows how to dig deep into our troubling times in order to expose our tentative grasp of modernity. Some compare this book to William Golding's "Lord of the Flies," and there are definite characteristics the two novels share. I would argue, however, that "High Rise" is more eloquent and more relevant than Golding's book. Unfortunately, this Ballard novel is out of print. Try and locate a copy at your local library because the payoff is well worth the effort.

"High Rise" centers around four major characters: Dr. Robert Laing, an instructor at a local medical school, Richard Wilder, a television documentary producer, Anthony Royal, an architect, and the high rise building all three live in with 2,000 other people. Throughout the story, Ballard switches back and forth between these three people, recording their thoughts and actions as they live their lives in the new high-rise apartment building. Ballard made sure to pick three separate people living on different floors of the forty floor building: Laing lives on the twenty fifth floor, Wilder lives on the second floor, and Royal lives in a penthouse on the fortieth floor (befitting his status as the designer of the building). Where you live in this structure will soon take on an importance beyond life itself.

At the beginning of the story, most of the people living in the building get along quite well. There are the usual nitpicky problems one would expect when 2,000 people are jammed together, but overall people move freely from the top to the bottom floors. A person living on the bottom floors can easily go to the observation deck on the top of the building to enjoy the view, or shop at the two banks of stores on the tenth and thirty-fifth floors. Children swim and play in the pools and playgrounds throughout the high rise without any interference. Despite the fact that well to do people live in the building, with celebrities and executives on the top floors, middle-class people on the middle floors, and airline pilots and the like on the bottom ten floors, everyone gets along reasonably well-at first.

Then things change. The gossip level increases among the residents, and parties held on different floors start to exclude people from other areas. In quick succession, objects start to land on balconies, dropped by residents on higher levels. Equipment failures, such as electrical outages, lead to mild assaults between residents. Cars parked close to the building are vandalized, and a jeweler living on the fortieth floor does a swan dive out of the window. Every incident leads to further acts of violence and increasing chaos in the lives of those in the building. People begin to take a greater interest in what's going on where they live than in outside activities and jobs. As the violence escalates, elevators and lobbies on each floor turn into armed camps as the residents attempt to block any encroachments on their territory. What starts out as a book about living in a technological marvel quickly morphs into a study of how technology can cause human beings to regress back into primitivism. Moreover, Ballard tries to draw a correlation between the technology of the building and this descent into a Stone Age mentality. He shows in detail how the residents of the apartments sink back into the morass, passing through a classical Marxist structure of bourgeoisie-proletariat, moving on to a clan/tribal system, to a system of stark individuality. In short, Ballard tries to equate our striving towards individuality through technology with how we started out in our evolution as hunter-gatherers, as individuals seeking individual gains. The promise that technology will liberate the individual is not the highest form of evolution, argues Ballard, but is actually a return to the lowest forms of human expression.

Within a few pages of the story, I thought this might turn out to be very similar to a Bentley Little book. Little, nominally a horror writer but often a social satirist, often takes a situation like this and shows how people collapse under the pressures of modern life. My belief was not born out, however, not because Ballard doesn't take certain situations over the top but because he imbues his work with a significant philosophical subtext that Little would never write about. Bentley Little is all about focusing on the over the top, outrageous incidents of humanity's decline, whereas Ballard is more interested in serving as a preacher on anti-humanistic technology, thundering out a jeremiad concerning where we might go if we do not take the time to think very carefully about the society we wish to create.

"High Rise" is a dark, forbidding tale of woe that is sure to get a reaction from anyone who reads it. There seem to be few out there who can deliver such devastating blows to our love of technology as Ballard does in his works. This author is often referred to as a science fiction writer, but "High Rise" works just as well on a horror level. So does "Crash," when I think about it, although the cold, detached prose of that book is not present in "High Rise." Whatever genre Ballard falls into, this book delivers on every level.

There's nothing Ballard loves more than microcosms ("Rushing To Paradise", "Concrete Island", "Day of Creation") and in this one, he isolates the factors of human society and puts it up against our animal natures. The result is as fascinating as it is ultimately horrible. Very well-written, and strong both as a novel that raises a philosophical question and as a straight-ahead horror novel.

On a side note, I found this book in print, new editions, in a couple of major Canadian bookstore chain in Montreal. Yet it doesn't seem to be in print in the U.S. What's up?