Crystal world
Kristallwelt (Original title: The Crystal World ) is a science fiction novel by the British author James Graham Ballard , who describes a doomsday scenario in it. The novel was first published in 1966 by the London publisher Jonathan Cape and has been translated into German, French, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Japanese and Korean.
action
The novel is about how a mysterious disease breaks out in a small region of West Africa that transforms people, animals and plants into crystalline structures. While the population is fleeing the eerie phenomenon, the leprosy doctor Dr. Sanders to explore the mysterious crystal world with a group of volunteers .
As in other of his works, Ballard depicts in this novel the fall of mankind in its previously known form. An increasing crystallization of the earth takes place, caused by an overgrowth of the subatomic structure of matter (Hubble effect). The living beings crystallized in this way do not die, however, but freeze in a world without time.
The same themes grabbed Ballard already in his 1964 story published The illuminated man ( The Illuminated Man ) on. In it, the protagonist is an ambassador named James B., alluding to the author himself.
Expenses (selection)
- The Crystal World. Jonathan Cape, London 1966, ISBN 0-224-61044-9 .
- Crystal world. Translated from English by Margarete Bormann. v. Schröder, Hamburg 1969.
- Crystal world. Translated from English by Joachim Körber . Edition Phantasia , Bellheim 2005, ISBN 3-937897-06-2 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Editions and formats of The Crystal World worldcat.org. Retrieved September 25, 2015.
- ↑ Holger Nielen: eschatological and historical-philosophical motifs in science fiction. In: Journal for Fantastic Research. 2/2011, LIT Verlag Münster, p. 24.