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Rating: 
Summary: ...
Review: Although it has some lovely queasy undertones and a very workable premise, I found myself a intermittently bored with Super-Cannes after the 50 page mark. This is the first book by JG Ballard that I've read, and it pleased me enough to want to seek out others, but I think his choices for certain plot developments, rather reductive characterizations, and of often laughably pulpy dialogue* were poorly made, and if it wern't for his reputation, slightly greater literacy and the interesting plot, I would just have soon read some supermarket "thriller", like another (terrible) Dan Brown book.*i.e. "...an affable and fleshy Franco-Lebanese, he stood behind his desk, camel hair coat over his shoulders, more public relations man than security chief. Crime might be absent from Eden-Olympia, but other pleasures were closer to hand."
Rating:
Summary: ...
Review: Although it has some lovely queasy undertones and a very workable premise, I found myself a intermittently bored with Super-Cannes after the 50 page mark. This is the first book by JG Ballard that I've read, and it pleased me enough to want to seek out others, but I think his choices for certain plot developments, rather reductive characterizations, and of often laughably pulpy dialogue* were poorly made, and if it wern't for his reputation, slightly greater literacy and the interesting plot, I would just have soon read some supermarket "thriller", like another (terrible) Dan Brown book. *i.e. "...an affable and fleshy Franco-Lebanese, he stood behind his desk, camel hair coat over his shoulders, more public relations man than security chief. Crime might be absent from Eden-Olympia, but other pleasures were closer to hand."
Rating: 
Summary: Tech Park Dystopia
Review: Ballard's latest offering is a murder mystery set in the high tech perfection of Europe's premier silicon valley. A young couple, Paul and Jane Sinclair, leave London for blue chip promises in France's newest tech park, Eden Olympia in the Cote d'Azur. It soon becomes apparent that all is not as it seems
in this tranquil, modern utopia. Crippled aviator, Paul finds himself drawn to investigate a murder spree by Jane's predeccesor, Dr David Greenfield. As he retraces the steps of the murders, and interacts with the various characters peopling the park, the dream perfection that is Eden Olympia takes on nightmarish proportions, unveiling an underbelly of sex and violence spiralling out of control. Although the book reads like a pacy noir thriller, sustaining the reader's attention throughout, it's real appeal lies in its surrealist vision .Ballard's genius lies in his concept of a 21st century dystopia, borne of the culture of consumption but unable to be sustained by it. In his paranoid vision of humanity, psychopathic violence becomes the key that keeps the wheels of perfection turning. This is the 1984 meets A Clockwork Orange of the 21st century, a Darwinian Lord of the Flies set in a Silicon valley so perfect that its executives dine rather than binge.Excellent reading and excellent food for thought.
Rating: 
Summary: Fine thriller though possibly not Ballard's best
Review: In a continuation of the theme he explored in Cocaine Nights, as well as other works, author J.G. Ballard pens a mystery about a cloistered, high-tech community coming to terms with its need for recreational sociopathology. Eden-Olympia is an ultra modern business park and insular community nestled uncomfortably among the olive groves and marinas of the Cote d'Azure and where recently a respected young doctor embarked on a vicious killing spree. New residents soon find they have little time for anything but work and begin showing mental and physical problems that threaten to overtake the would be corporate paradise. In classic ballardian form, rogue psychiatrist Wilder Penrose steps in and implements a regime in which workaholic CEO's, presidents and junior vp's are encouraged to sublimate their fantasies of criminality, sexuality and violence by taking part in "therapy sessions" of a most uncoventional type. While investigating the bizarre murder-suicide of the former doctor, protagonist Paul Sinclair soon finds himself drawn deeply into this ferment of bright modernity and dark venality. While not on a level with some of his other work; (and his best work is awesome) and although his characters are rather remote, (as usual) Super-Cannes is still an invigorating book. Ballard's mythologizing of crashed airplanes...abandoned runways...car parks... swimming pools...and other totems of our time forms one of the more exotic contributions to literature, yet it works. A strangely lit poetry suffuses his novels, short stories and essays; and one can always count on him for an an unexpected vista. His relentless probing of the social/technological interface has yielded some unsettling prophecies. Super-Cannes is basically a parable about the future; and as Ballard views it, the future is now.
Rating:
Summary: Fine thriller though possibly not Ballard's best
Review: J. G. Ballard's latest novel, the critically acclaimed "Super-Cannes", is a futuristic thriller set in a high-tech business park somewhere in Cannes, where the eerie hum of economic activity within the cloistered confines of offices and laboratories substitute for real human contact. The novel's protagonist and narrator, Dr Paul Sinclair and his wife Jane, arrive in Cannes and are immediately checked into the house formerly occupied by Jane's ex-colleague from England, David Greenwood, who shocked the township when he went on a murderous rampage one morning, killing several of his colleagues before turning the gun on himself. So, unlike a typical murder mystery, we know who did it. The question is why ? Incapacitated by a bad leg from a flying accident, Paul sets about investigating the incident while his wife disappears like clockwork into the shining concrete jungle every morning. The first half of the novel ticks like a detective story, focussing on Paul's sleuthing as he retraces the events of that fateful morning. Nothing unusual so far except for creepy new age characters like the chief psychiatrist, Wilder Penrose security guard, Frank Halder. Nevertheless, there is a mounting sense of disquiet as the story progresses. Notice you never actually see Jane or anybody else at work. In fact, the only people you meet are neighbours and others relevant to Paul's investigation. Then something completely unexpected happens and you feel as if you're in another story. Hints of weird goings-on (eg, racial violence, gang busts, etc) and drug addiction start to surface and when this coincides with Jane's growing estrangement from her husband, you know there's an external force at work and it's to do with powerful occupants of the tech park. That's when you feel you may be hallucinating or have wandered into a Ballardian science fiction novel by mistake. Unfortunately, that's also when the plot begins to feel a little contrived. Super-Cannes is a real page turner. No doubt about it. As a thriller, it succeeds well enough but its vision of a work obsessed society with the all the attendant value perversions that accompany it is, though frightening, not particularly illuminating. Super-Cannes may not be Ballard's best work but it's highly entertaining and definitely worth your time reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Open Your Eyes
Review: Like Carpenter, Ballard suffers from poor execution of some good ideas. John Carpenter may or may not have been a good director once (depending on your point of view), but for the past 20 years he has consistently put out movies where the premise looks engaging on paper (Prince of Darkness, They Live, etc.), but quickly fall into a semi-coherent mess. Likewise Ballard, who is at best coasting on the reputation of a 30 year old book. Ballard has had some great visionary ideas, but his sad insistence on overfocusing on sexual perversion as a compelling/repelling drive for his characters got tired a long, long time ago. If Tom Robbins was a humorless German surgeon instead of an aging hippie, you'd get a close approximation of Ballard's hang-ups. In Ballard's world, all forms of sexual expression are deviant, creepily desperate, and universally abundant. Ballard no longer seems like a literary provocateur, but more like a pedophilic, self-important older uncle that your family would rather not discuss. "Super-Cannes" is Ballard's rewrite of "Fight Club", with the rich and powerful assuming the roles of the disillusioned and powerless.
Rating:
Summary: A glimpse of the near-future now
Review: Repeating his previous effort Cocaine Nights (also outstanding), JG Ballard once again uses the mystery-thriller structure to engage us in his deep thoughts about a society where people are obsessed with working 7-days a week for 16-hours per day with the drive for corporate profits a transcendent virtue. When Paul Sinclair follows his wife Jane to Eden-Olympia, Paul is plunged into a mystery which no one seems eager to solve. Located near Cannes, Eden-Olympia offers multinational corporations a high-tech tax haven with temperate weather similar to Northern California's Silicon Valley. Busy executives live in crime and sickness-free enclaves leading extremely productive lives. Everything seems perfect except for the shocking mass murder recently committed by Dr. Greenwood, the pediatrician whom Jane is replacing. While Paul recovers from his injuries, he plunges head-first into discovering the motives and possible conspiracies behind Dr. Greenwood's murders. Many literary critics consider Ballard to be a science-fiction writer. More accurately, I consider Ballard a futurist capable of offering a glimpse of the near-future which our society and culture may be headed for. In Ballard's Eden-Olympia there is "an inability to rest the mind, to find time for rest and relaxation". The only prescription offered is "small doses of insanity" taking the form of robberies, rapes (and other fetishes), drugs, and kiddie porn. If Ballard is correct in his bleak vision, is it not unsurprising that the captains of industry - Welch, Koslowski, Skilling - all decided to play God (to one extent or another)? Going "a little mad" with adulterous affairs, grand larceny, and other felonious activities may have been the only way of staying sane in an unforgiving world demanding performance.
Rating: 
Summary: Again, one monolithic vision of dystopia.
Review: Though most of Ballard's work contains unvarying plots, motifs, characters, etc., I was quite stunned to find that 'Super Cannes' and 'Cocaine Nights' are - albeit with minor tweaks and variations - actually one and the same book. From the backdrops to the manic idiosyncrasies of the characters, the key components in each enjoy such thorough correspondences and identity that a synopsis of one book effectively adumbrates the other. It seems Ballard's technique of thematic reiteration and repetition has achieved such perfection as to suggest that an author has finally (and remarkably) cloned his own work and slipped it over the transom. Read both books if you wish to scrutinize the sublime homogeneity of Ballard's imagination. Or pick one or the other, and feel satisfied that you've economized on money and time.
Rating:
Summary: Again, one monolithic vision of dystopia.
Review: Though most of Ballard's work contains unvarying plots, motifs, characters, etc., I was quite stunned to find that `Super Cannes' and `Cocaine Nights' are - albeit with minor tweaks and variations - actually one and the same book. From the backdrops to the manic idiosyncrasies of the characters, the key components in each enjoy such thorough correspondences and identity that a synopsis of one book effectively adumbrates the other. It seems Ballard's technique of thematic reiteration and repetition has achieved such perfection as to suggest that an author has finally (and remarkably) cloned his own work and slipped it over the transom. Read both books if you wish to scrutinize the sublime homogeneity of Ballard's imagination. Or pick one or the other, and feel satisfied that you've economized on money and time.
Rating:
Summary: freedom is psychopathology at Eden-Olympia
Review: Welcome to Eden-Olympia, J.G. Ballard's latest setting for speculative fiction. Paul Sinclair just lost his pilot's license, and is moving with his young wife, Jane, who has just taken the pediatrician's position at the multinational business park and planned community. At first the only hesitation the couple has is that the gentleman who "vacated" Jane's post did so following a killing spree amongst his neighbors. Upon their arrival, everything seems perfect, too perfect. Slowly, the veneer begins to peel away. Why were they put into the deceased Dr. Greenwood's house? Why won't anyone talk about the terrible tragedy? Where do all the husbands and business men go at night in their matching leather bowling jackets? And just what is Dr. Wilder Penrose, resident psychiatrist, doing with his "recreational therapy" program? Driven by curiousity, and then fear for himself and his wife, Paul begins an investigation of his own, or is his just part of Penrose's alternative program? An excellent view into the warping of modern, technological life. Despite being set in France, this tale plays more like a subtle American reality. A gentle and creeping psychological thriller, much like Ballard's last novel, Cocaine Nights.
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