Billennium

1961By J.G Ballard

Biography of J.G Ballard• James Graham "J. G." Ballard (15 November 1930 – 19 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story

writer, and essayist.• Ballard came to be associated with the New Wave of science fiction early in his career with apocalyptic (or

post-apocalyptic) novels such as The Drowned World (1962), The Burning World (1964), and The Crystal World (1966). In the late 1960s and early 1970s Ballard focused on an eclectic variety of short stories (or "condensed novels") such as The Atrocity Exhibition (1970), which drew closer comparison with the work of postmodernist writers such as William S. Burroughs. In 1973 the highly controversial novel Crash was published, a story about symphorophilia and car crash fetishism; the protagonist becomes sexually aroused by staging and participating in real car crashes. The story was later adapted into a film of the same name by David Cronenberg.

• While many of Ballard's stories are thematically and narratively unusual, he is perhaps best known for his relatively conventional war novel, Empire of the Sun (1984), a semi-autobiographical account of a young boy's experiences in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War as it came to be occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army. Described as "The best British novel about the Second World War" by The Guardian, the story was adapted into a 1987 film by Steven Spielberg.

• The literary distinctiveness of Ballard's work has given rise to the adjective "Ballardian", defined by the Collins English Dictionary as "resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. G. Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments." The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry describes Ballard's work as being occupied with "eros, thanatos, mass media and emergent technologies".

Works of J.G Ballard

Novels• The Wind from Nowhere (1961); The

Drowned World (1962); The Burning World (1964); The Crystal World (1966); Crash (1973); Concrete Island (1974); High Rise (1975); The Unlimited Dream Company (1979); Hello America (1981); Empire of the Sun (1984); The Day of Creation (1987); Running Wild (1988); The Kindness of Women (1991); Rushing to Paradise (1994); Cocaine Nights (1996); Super-Cannes (2000); Millennium People (2003); Kingdom Come (2006)

Short stories• The Voices of Time and Other Stories (1962);

Billennium (1961); Passport to Eternity (1963); The Four-Dimensional Nightmare (1963); The Terminal Beach (1964); The Impossible Man (1966); The Overloaded Man (1967); The Disaster Area (1967); The Day of Forever (1967); The Atrocity Exhibition (1969); Vermilion Sands (1971); Chronopolis and Other Stories (1971); Low-Flying Aircraft and Other Stories (1976); The Best of J. G. Ballard (1977); The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard (1978); The Venus Hunters (1980); Myths of the Near Future (1982); The Voices of Time (1985); Memories of the Space Age (1988); War Fever (1990); The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard (2001); The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard: Volume 1 (2006); The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard: Volume 2 (2006); The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard (2009):

Non-fiction• A User's Guide to the

Millennium: Essays and Reviews (1996); Miracles of Life (autobiography; 2008)

Interviews• J.G. Ballard (1985); J.G.

Ballard: Quotes (2004); J.G. Ballard: Conversations (2005); Extreme Metaphors: Interviews with J.G. Ballard (2012)

Billennium

• This story was written in the Common Era also known as the Christian era. It was written in 1961.

Common era• Common Era (also Current Era or Christian Era), abbreviated as CE, is an alternative naming of the

calendar era, Anno Domini BCE is the abbreviation for Before the Common/Current/Christian Era. The CE/BCE designation uses the year-numbering system introduced by the 6th-century Christian monk Dionysius Exiguus, who started the Anno Domini designation, intending the beginning of the life of Jesus to be the reference date. Neither notation includes a year zero, and the two notations are numerically equivalent; thus "2014 CE" corresponds to "AD 2014", and "400 BCE" corresponds to "400 BC".

• The expression "Common Era" can be found as early as 1708 in English, and traced back to Latin usage among European Christians to 1615, as vulgaris aerae, and to 1635 in English as Vulgar Era. At those times, the expressions were all used interchangeably with "Christian Era", with "vulgar" meaning "ordinary, common, or not regal" rather than "crudely indecent". Use of the CE abbreviation was introduced by Jewish academics in the mid-19th century. Since the later 20th century, use of CE and BCE has been popularized in academic and scientific publications, and more generally by publishers emphasizing secularism or sensitivity to non-Christians.

• The Gregorian calendar and the year-numbering system associated with it is the calendar system with most widespread use in the world today. For decades, it has been the global standard, recognized by international institutions such as the United Nations and the Universal Postal Union.

• The CE/BCE notation has been adopted by some authors and publishers wishing to be neutral or sensitive to non-Christians because it does not explicitly make use of religious titles for Jesus, such as "Christ" and Dominus ("Lord"), which are used in the BC/AD notation, nor does it give implicit expression to the Christian creed that Jesus was the Christ.

Billennium

• Billennium is a short story by J. G. Ballard first published in the January 1961 edition of Amazing Stories and in the Billennium collection. It later appeared in The Terminal Beach (1964), and The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard: Volume 1 (2006).

• With a dystopian ambience, "Billennium" explores themes similar to Ballard's earlier story "The Concentration City", of space shortages and over-crowding.

Setting and plot

Setting• The story is set in the future (possibly c. 21st

century - see Billennium) where the world is becoming increasingly overpopulated, with a population of around 20 billion. Most of its inhabitants live in crowded central cities in order to preserve as much land as possible outside of them for farming, and as a result the world does not have a food problem, nor wars - since all governments devote themselves to addressing the problems caused by overpopulation. In the city inhabited by the two protagonists, John Ward and Henry Rossiter, there is a mass shortage of space and the people live in small cellular rooms where they are charged by ceiling space, the legal maximum decreasing to 3.5 square metres (38 sq ft) per person. The city streets are enormously crowded, resulting in occasional pedestrian congestions that last days at a time. Most old and historical buildings have been taken down to make way for new battery homes or divided into hundreds of small cubicles.

Plot• The story revolves around Ward and

Rossiter's combined discovery of a secret, larger-than-average room adjacent to their rented cubicle. As the two bask in the extra personal space that they have never known, things become complicated when they allow two other close friends to share the space, and the ensuing snowball effect of their invitees bringing family to live in the room. In the end, the "luxurious" space comes to be the same type of crowded cubicle that they were trying to escape from in the first place.