Millennium People

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Millennium People is a novel by J. G. Ballard published in 2003. The novels is the story of a rebellion in the middle classes in an enclave of Greater London.

When a bomb explodes on a baggage carousel at Heathrow Airport, killing his ex-wife, David Markham tries to unravel the mystery surrounding her seemingly pointless death. But with unresolved questions about himself, his job, and his loving but adulterous wife, he soon finds himself immersed in the deeper waters of middle class revolution.

When a protest at a cat show turns ugly and he is beaten up by angry cat lovers, then arrested and tried, Markham enlists in the cause of the rebellious Chelseans - imagining he will uncover the persons and causes responsible for his ex's murder. Slowly, he succumbs to the call of subversion and gradually finds himself a terrorist functionary. Along the way we meet an assortment of wonderfully ballardian characters: Markham's wife, who continues to use her arm canes though her leg injuries from an accident with a tram have completely healed. A sociopathic, college film studies lecturer/terrorist cell leader who takes Markham for a lover; a troubled priest and his Chinese girlfriend; a former MI5 bombmaker turned revolutionary. And a kindly pediatrican cum terrorist mastermind. Ultimately, Markham learns the reasons behind his former wife's murder have a very different logic than he had imagined.

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v • d • e
Works by J. G. Ballard
Novels:

The Wind From Nowhere (1961) • The Drowned World (1962) • The Burning World (1964) • The Crystal World (1966) • The Atrocity Exhibition (1969) • 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:
Short story
collections:

The Voices of Time and Other Stories (1962) • Billennium (1962) • Passport to Eternity (1963) • The Four-Dimensional Nightmare (1963) • The Terminal Beach (1964) • The Impossible Man (1966) • The Venus Hunters (1967) • The Overloaded Man (1967) • The Disaster Area (1967) • The Day of Forever (1967) • 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) • 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)
Essays & reviews


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