A Question of Re-Entry [in] Fantastic Stories, March 1963 Signed by J.G.Ballard

A Question of Re-Entry [in] Fantastic Stories of Imagination, March 1963
New York: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1963
 
8vo., decorative wrappers by Jack Gaughan showing robotic hands over a screaming face illustrating ‘Physician to the Universe’; illustration and quote to rear cover from ‘A Question of Re-entry’; advertisements to versos of wraps; pp. 3-130; several black and white illustrations throughout, including by Coye and Adkins; some minor shelfwear to rear cover; pages evenly toned, as ever, with some light creasing; a very good copy of an ephemeral work. 
 
Volume 12, No. 3 in Fantastic Stories of Imagination, where Ballard contributes his short story, appearing in print here for the first time. This copy boldly signed by Ballard in blue ink to p.5. Other contributors include Clifford Simak and Guy de Maupassant (reprinted). 
 
The interesting appearance of several early works by popular science fiction writers of the 1960s, of which Ballard is just one. Here, he contributes a short story which has sometimes been compared to Joseph Conrad’s 1889 novel Heart of Darkness, where a protagonist travels upriver in the amazon basin to discover a European who has become a native. Other stories featured here include Physician to the Universe by Clifford D. Simak, in which robots enforce a draconian system of health care on the human race and Nine Starships Waiting by Roger Zelanzy, concerning a spaceship which must guide the human race into the future. An Apparition by Guy de Maupassant is also featured under ‘Long-Lost Fantasy Classics’ (originally published in 1883 and reprinted here), where a soldier in a remote chateau begins to experience strange supernatural events.