J. G. Ballard is difficult to categorize as a writer. His early work had an immediate impact on the sciencefiction scene: he was heralded as one of the leading lights of the New Wave school of British science-fiction writers associated with New Worlds, the path-breaking magazine edited from 1964 by Michael Moorcock. Ballard published his first short story in 1956, and in the decade that followed wrote approximately fifty more stories, most of which boldly and inventively expanded the boundaries of science fiction. This frenetic pace gradually slowed down thereafter, partly because the writer began to focus more on the novel as a form. The Wind from Nowhere, his first full-length fiction, was published in 1962 and was quickly followed by the highly acclaimed The Drowned World (1962), The Burning World (1964), and The Crystal World (1966). Thus, Ballard was, from the early 1960s, publishing short stories and novels in tandem, but the latter began to predominate after 1970. Whereas he published his first fifty short stories in just ten years, another three decades were required for him to double this number. By the early 1990s he had almost stopped working in the short-story format. The gradual move away from the short story represents one aspect of the trajectory of Ballard's career. His development as a writer has also been marked by his concern with themes that he seeks to explore in genres other than science fiction. Ballard's desire to engage directly with contemporary social existence helps to explain the