A copy of the 1987 edition is briefly seen being read by a security guard played by Ken Jeong in the 2019 superhero film Avengers: Endgame, which shares its subtitle with a story in the book.They determine he is the Wandering Jew, and also the thief and forger. Not only is the face recognizably the same in each, no matter which artist, country, or century, the portraits of this man are also alterations of the original paintings.

Two art directors, seeking the thief, examine several crucifixion paintings, each also previously stolen, and discern a hitherto-unnoticed man in each one.

'The Lost Leonardo': A painting by Leonardo da Vinci of the Crucifixion of Jesus is stolen from the Louvre Museum.

'The Reptile Enclosure': Infrared lights from a newly launched radio satellite trigger thousands of people on the beach to drown themselves.

'The Illuminated Man': A precursor to the novel The Crystal World.

To pass the time, they are playing chess, while the condemned tries to win a game of persuasion.

'End-Game': A psychological match between a person on death row, who lives with his executioner in a comfortable house, and does not know the time and day of his execution.

It is then widely believed that the giant never existed at all. The initial wonder soon gives way to banality as people start to climb over the body and remove or vandalize parts of it until the body is completely dismembered.

'The Drowned Giant': A giant human(oid) body washes ashore.The story evolves around the clash between civilization-based knowledge and native belief. 'A Question of Re-entry': This story has some parallels to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, with the protagonist traveling upriver in the Amazon rain forest, to meet a European who went native.Between the decaying buildings on the island, the reader follows his mental and physical decline. 'The Terminal Beach': A man who does not come to terms with the premature death of his wife and son steals away onto an island of Eniwetok, once used for testing nuclear weapons.Ballard, published in 1964.Ĭontents British edition The Terminal Beach is a collection of science fiction short stories by British author J.

The drowned world by jg ballard