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The chief proponent of New Wave science fiction during the 1960s, J.G. Ballard in the intervening decades has become one of the most significant and influential voices in contemporary fiction, an author whose apocalyptic imaginings have explored the major myths and metaphors of our century. One of Ballard's most insistent concerns, beginning with "The Cage of Sand" in 1962, has been the psychological implications of man's exploration of outer space. Over the years the author has written a series of mesmerizing stories set within the rusting gantries of Cape Canaveral, involving moribund astronauts encircling the Earth, and depicting a world in retreat from the ravages of time. All of the Cape Canaveral and related fiction is collected in the present volume, including several previously unreprinted works by this visionary master. "The Cage of Sand," "A Question of Re-entry," "The Dead Astronaut," "My Dream of Flying to Wake Island," "News from the Sun," "Memories of the Space Age," "Myths of the Near Future," and "The Man Who Walked on the Moon."