The Drowned World
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Narrated by:
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Julian Elfer
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By:
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J. G. Ballard
About this listen
When London is lost beneath the rising tides, unconscious desires rush to the surface in this apocalyptic tale from the author of Crash and Cocaine Nights.
Fluctuations in solar radiation have melted the ice caps, sending the planet into a new Triassic Age of unendurable heat. London is a swamp; lush tropical vegetation grows up the walls of the Ritz and primeval reptiles are sighted, swimming through the newly formed lagoons. Some flee the capital; others remain to pursue reckless schemes, in the name of science and profit.
While others drain the submerged streets in search of treasure, Dr Robert Kerans - part of a group of intrepid scientists - comes to accept this submarine city and finds himself strangely resistant to the idea of saving it.
First published in 1962, Ballard’s mesmerising and ferociously imaginative novel gained him widespread critical acclaim and established his reputation as one of Britain’s finest writers of science fiction.
J. G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai, where his father was a businessman. After internment in a civilian prison camp, he and his family returned to England in 1946. He published his first novel, The Drowned World, in 1961. His 1984 best seller Empire of the Sun won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was later filmed by Steven Spielberg. His memoir Miracles of Life was published in 2008. J.G. Ballard died in 2009.
©1962 J. G. Ballard (P)2014 Audible StudiosListeners also enjoyed...
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- Burton & Swinburne, Book 1
- By: Mark Hodder
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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Sir Richard Francis Burton and Algernon Charles Swinburne are sucked into the perilous depths of a moral and ethical vacuum when Lord Palmerston commissions Burton to investigate assaults on young women committed by a weird apparition known as Spring Heeled Jack - and to find out why werewolves are terrorizing London's East End.
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Fun Steampunk but on the outlandish side
- By Robert L. on 02-08-12
By: Mark Hodder
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The Hidden Oasis
- By: Paul Sussman
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 20 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Egypt 2153 BC: 80 priests set out under cover of darkness with a mysterious object.... Albania, 1986: A plane takes off bound for the Sudan. Somewhere over the Sahara it disappears.... The present: a mummified corpse is discovered in the dunes with a roll of camera film and a clay obelisk inscribed with a hieroglyphic sign.... Three unconnected events - or so it seems.
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Hot and Heavy in Egypt
- By Matthew on 05-10-10
By: Paul Sussman
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Stations of the Tide
- By: Michael Swanwick
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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The Jubilee Tides will drown the continents of the planet Miranda beneath the weight of her own oceans. But as the once-in-two-centuries cataclysm approaches, an even greater catastrophe threatens this dark and dangerous planet of tale-spinners, conjurers, and shapechangers. From author Michael Swanwick—one of the most brilliantly assured and darkly inventive writers of contemporary fiction—comes a masterwork of radically altered realities and world-shattering seductions.
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Hard to categorize, hard to put down
- By Robert L. on 03-25-12
By: Michael Swanwick
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Omega Days
- Omega Days, Book 1
- By: John L. Campbell
- Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Eight million walking dead stalk the San Francisco Bay Area, with more on the way. Scattered refugees - a priest with a bloody past, a college girl turned sniper, escaped San Quentin inmates and others - will quickly learn the three most important rules of survival: Make your bullets count. Don't fall behind. Don't...get...bitten! Fast-paced and packed with zombie action, Book One of the Omega Days series lights off the apocalypse with a scream, and tears California to pieces!
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Disappointed
- By L on 06-19-14
By: John L. Campbell
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Atlantis
- Jack Howard Series, Book 1
- By: David Gibbins
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Marine archaeologist Jack Howard has stumbled upon the keys to an ancient puzzle. With a crack team of scientific experts and ex–Special Forces commandos, he is heading for what he believes could be the greatest archaeological find of all time - the site of fabled Atlantis - while a ruthless adversary watches his every move and prepares to strike. But neither Jack nor his adversary could have imagined what awaits them in the murky depths - not only a shocking truth about a lost world but an explosive secret that could have devastating consequences today.
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Solid plausible fiction -- a touch too technical
- By GH on 06-01-15
By: David Gibbins
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The Hollow Man
- By: Dan Simmons
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Jeremy Bremen has a secret. All his life he's been cursed with the ability to read minds. He knows the secret thoughts, fears, and desires of others as if they were his own. For years, his wife, Gail, has served as a shield between Jeremy and the burden of this terrible knowledge. But Gail is dying, her mind ebbing slowly away, leaving him vulnerable to the chaotic flood of thought that threatens to sweep away his sanity. Now Jeremy is on the run - from his mind, from his past, from himself - hoping to find peace in isolation.
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Genius writing, great book
- By David Shear on 02-28-14
By: Dan Simmons
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Altered Carbon
- By: Richard K. Morgan
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 17 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 25th century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life itself. Now, assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person's consciousness can be stored in a cortical stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve") making death nothing more than a minor blip on a screen.
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Altered Carbon
- By Jake Williams on 09-22-07
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Blood and Ice
- By: Robert Masello
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 16 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Journalist Michael Wilde - his world recently shattered by tragedy - hopes that a monthlong assignment to the South Pole will give him a new lease on life. There, in the most inhospitable place on earth, he is simply looking to find solace...until, on a routine dive in to the polar sea, he unexpectedly finds something else entirely: a young man and woman, bound with chains and sealed forever in a block of ice. Beside them is a chest filled with a strange, and sinister, cargo.
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I really enjoyed this book
- By Nicole on 04-24-16
By: Robert Masello
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In the Ocean of Night
- Galactic Center, Book 1
- By: Gregory Benford
- Narrated by: Maxwell Caulfield
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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It is 2019. NASA astronaut Nigel Walmsley is sent on a mission to intercept a rogue asteroid on a collision course with Earth. Ordered to destroy it, he instead discovers that it is actually the shell of a derelict space probe - a wreck with just enough power to emit a single electronic signal….
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Like some Space with your Soaps?
- By Bradley on 05-15-12
By: Gregory Benford
What listeners say about The Drowned World
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Miriam
- 09-18-14
In dreams we meet again
'The Drowned World' was the first JG Ballard book I ever read, and I consider it the most fascinating, and engaging, of the initial quartet concerned with climatic catastrophes ('The Wind from Nowhere'; 'The Drowned World'; 'The Crystal World'; 'The Burning World/The Drought'). Ballard regarded it as his 'first' novel (rather cruelly condemning 'The Wind from Nowhere', which isn't really so bad).
Given that 'The Drowned World' is Ballard's 'first', or at least very early, work, it's supremely confident, yet economical, writing. The style seems more concise, and the plot more precise, than the other works in the quartet. At the same time, the subtext/s are packed in tightly: a lot of commentators will point to the Freudian and Jungian undertones, the apparent parallels with Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' (explicitly denied by Ballard), Ballard's incorporation of Surrealist techniques and themes (perhaps novel here, but not a surprise to anyone familiar with his later works - the resonances between this and 'The Atrocity Exhibition' are fascinating in retrospect), and allusions to Shakespeare and classical mythology. I have no doubt that 'The Drowned World' can be analysed on these (and probably other) levels if you wish. Much of of the delight of the book is in Ballard's lavish descriptions of the bizarre externalities and it is easy for a reader to 'lose themselves' in the evocative landscapes. However, for me, 'The Drowned World' (much like 'The Crystal World') is all about psychology, not geography. What Ballard is really inviting you to consider is not the unusual world he describes, but how people react to, and behave in, such extremes.
Many readers feel that Ballard's characters (especially the lone female character of Beatrice in 'The Drowned World') are not sufficiently well-drawn to connect with, and it is therefore impossible to be interested in their their motivations and their decisions. I doubt this is an oversight, rather a very deliberate technique: he's not inviting you to empathise, rather to analyse. Ballard acknowledges explicitly that even the characters rarely connect with one another, that "their only true meeting ground would be in their dreams".
Julian Elfer's narration of this text is very good - a couple of odd pronunciations here and there, but the pace and tone is excellent.
As Ballard never disowned 'The Drowned World', I suggest it's a good starting point for anyone wanting to 'try' Ballard. My only negative comment would be that, in audiobook form, I found the last third or so of the book more chaotic than I remembered from my last reading (in written form). For me, Ballard excelled in the short-story/novella format - his books, such as this one, can feel like they pack too much in and/or 'run out of steam' before the finish ... but as notions of time always play such an important element in his writing, I'm comfortable admitting that perhaps this is a reader failing, not a writer fault.
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