BALLARD, J.G. The 4-Dimensional Nightmare London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1963.
8vo., red publisher's cloth, backstrip lettered in gilt; in the iconic Gollancz yellow dust jacket (16/- net), printed in black and pink; pp. [viii], 9-208; very good, overall; the boards bowed and spotted to edges; spine tips compressed and upper corner bumped; pages evenly toned, in accordance with age; the final few pages with a corner crease reflecting the boards; in the unclipped jacket which retains much of its brightness; spine and folds a little browned; the former rubbed; some nicks and small chips, particular to head and foot of spine; one small hole to the rear fold; still, original and unrestored, seldom found in such superior condition.
First edition. The 4-Dimensional Nightmare was the second of Ballard's works to be published by Gollancz. A collection of short science fiction stories, it was later published under the title of the first which appears here; The Voices of Time.
In chronological order, the stories are:
The Voices of Time, which follows a neurosurgeon who finds his hours of wakefullnes getting shorter and shorter.
The Sound-Sweep, the story of a mute boy who collects stray sounds in a world without music.
Prima Belladonna, Ballard's first published story.
Studio 5, The Stars, a dystopian tale which anticipates the arrival of generative AI.
The Garden of Time, about an elegant couple living in a beautiful villa, in whose gardens grow flowers which can turn back time.
The Cage of Sand, where Cape Canaveral is decimated by encroaching martian sand dunes.
The Watch-Towers, which concern a town whose skyline is dominated by tall observation towers.
and
Chronopolis, a story about time, in which an imprisioned man becomes fascinated with a world in which clocks have been prohibited.
Several had formerly appeared in magazines, including Science Fantasy and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction but they appear here together for the first time under the Gollancz imprint.
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