The best collection of JG Ballard's stories, from his classic period -- the British edition that is.Best stories are: The Terminal Beach, The Drowned Giant, Bilennium and The Illuminated Man (which became The Crystal World). One of the most atypical stories in the Ballard canon is End-Game, which is also very good. The Reptile Enclosure is just maddening, The Delta at Sunset and The Volcano Dances exquisite atmospheric pieces. The Lost Leonardo an adventure. The Gioconda of the Twilight Noon and The Deep End are touching stories with some clear, basic Ballardian themes.A great introduction to JGB's work. ( )

The Terminal Beach is a collection of early stories so one gets a chance to see Ballard trying different things, and perhaps writing stories that read closer to regular SF. Many of the stories are more interesting for the ride than the punchline but a few stand out to mention here. "Billenium" is a very effective character study in a convincingly drawn overpopulated future, and "The Drowned Giant" is an odd little fantasy excursion that reads like something conjured up by Kafka or Borges -a first person journal account as if written by a Lilliputian, but with a a dead Gulliver washed up on the beach. A fascinating exercise. Those two stories are definitely worth trying to catch wherever you can find them. It looks like they both appear in other Ballard anthologies. ( )

An interesting collection of SF/weird/fantasy fiction; compared to other mid-'60s writers, Ballard was not afraid to take risks, but the science fiction seems grafted on in a clunky way sometimes. The standout story is "The Drowned Giant"; the rest didn't do much for me. ( )