Report on an Unidentified Space Station – J.G. Ballard (1982)

swiftcoder

Always loved this one

iamjs

Reminds me of Borges

throw310822

Annoying nitpick: > Our solar system and its planets, the millions of other solar systems that constitute our galaxy, and the island universes themselves all lie within the boundaries of the station. The station is coeval with the cosmos [...] > Estimated diameter: 15,000 light years. Uhmm.. Yes I know, the entire construction is not striving for realism and neither should be taken literally.

rullelito

I didn't get anything out of this. Felt very simple and not very mind-bending. Should I feel something?

hootz

Making a modern analogy, reading this feels kinda similar to reading about the Backrooms, but with a bigger, existential dread. Amazing.

anax32

This was a big moment for me, but I now believe it's fictional. Thanks Ballard

ShadowOfThePit

Reads like an early SCP exploration log. Although, I'm not sure if I get it. They end up making a religion out of it, but does that have a deeper meaning?

rfarley04

Tower of Babel by Ted Chiang is another comparison worth mentioning

Hackbraten

I can recommend the excellent novels Concrete Island [0] and High-Rise [1] from the same author. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_Island [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Rise_(novel)

bb123

I feel this should have a note that it's fictional in the title. I clicked this expecting to read about some kind of space race development with China or Russia.

cl3misch

> Our voices echoed away into a bottomless pit [of the elevator shaft] Would voices actually "echo away" in a literally bottomless pit?

nickdothutton

We all live in Ballard's future now. I encourage you to check out some of his interviews on YT.

andyjohnson0

For context, Ballard wrote this in 1982.

lupire

Flagged for misleading title

Hugsbox

Really enjoyed reading this, but kind of lost on what the deeper meaning might have been, if any.

t23414321

it's fictional

drayfield

Some interesting parallels to BLAME!, a manga about an ever-expanding colossal city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blame !

tontonius

just read it and not entirely sure what the allegory was, if any. some ideas off the top of my head: - "humans invent meaning after losing orientation": instead of simply accepting reality (we cant comprhened, our instruments cant measure this, we are lost etc) they turn helplessness into theology - "science-becomes-religion": hypotheses, measurements revise previous findings into increasing absurdity which eventually becomes religion. -" life as a waiting room": the station is an allegory for life or conciousness. we're all solitary voyagers on our infinite journey thru the "waiting rooms" of our existence. the journey is the destination etc curious to hear other riffs/takes on this

Schlagbohrer

Liminal space vibes indeed. Very of our time, showing that Ballard was once again ahead of his.