the short story of billennium

1. Billennium
1961
By J.G Ballard

2. 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".

3. 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):

4. 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)

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

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.