the gallery

storm bird, storm dreamer

Scanner collage based on New Worlds SF 168 featuring J G Ballard's
Storm bird, Storm dreamer

This second offering from the New Worlds SF series (No. 168, 1966) features a really, really strange J G Ballard story, in which Britain is under siege by gigantic birds. The birds were killed by glistening, seductive pesticides, and people mourned their passing. And then returned, like a judgement from the sea ... though the bare facts of the story are the stuff of B movies after midnight, Ballards transformational touch strikes from them a strange story of broken humanity, grieving, madness, and the glamour of lost causes, startling, mystical and magic.

Thankfully the artist signed the picture, as New Worlds forgot to credit K Roberts for this lovely cover picture. Inside, J Cawthorn has profusely illustrated the story with oddly evocative sketches, which look a lot like they were drawn in magic marker.


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