Infinite space — With bad dreams

T he creation of a united -Europe , so long desired arid so bitterly contested, had certain unexpected consequences." J. G. Ballard's story "The Largest Theme Park in the World" will reassure our prime minister about sovereignty; after some bizarre international coalescing , everyone rushes home to "reinstate a forgotten Europe of nations ", each bristling to guard its own frontiers, tariff barriers, and insularity. Actually this is not a real story at all, it's a scenario, with no individual characters — as if Ballard were observing the behaviour of populations from a space capsule. As indeed he is. The 14 stories in this book were mostly written in the past few years , with a few dating from the 1970 s. Short stories are short cuts into a writer's mind; they are repositories of condensed ob - session in a way that novels, even brilliant Ballard's own, are not. Like one of his characters, Ballard

(in print) has "hot blood and cold heart". The only act of love in the book, between a woman scientist and a castaway on a Caribbean island polluted by chemical waste, is "over so quickly that he was scarcely sure it had ever occ - ur red " . In these stories, most of them set in the future, human relationships tend to be as de - ranged and sterile as the flora and fauna of the poisoned island. In "Love in a Colder Climate". post - A ids , everyone has long ago given up sex. The young are conscripted for two years' national service, copulating with strangers, several times a week to raise the birth - ra te ; there is a lot of draft-dodging . Most fiction writers, even sci - ence - ficti on writers, fall back gratefully on the redemptive power of love. Not Ballara". He seduces our timid minds with visions of space-time , light, and -