Synopsis
Mr. Goddard keeps an entire town in a file box in his safe. He pulls it out to spy on the inhabitants.
History
First publication: Science Fantasy, October 1960
Review
Kind of a horror fantasy, sort of like a Twilight Zone episode. This story is surreal like so much of Ballard’s work. It plays with our perceptions of our place in the modern world and distorts reality. It calls up the idea of phenomenology, where we only can really know that we exist. Everything else might be a figment of our imaginations, or a hallucination. Or we might be god over the world around us. A very good story, very well-written.
Videos
We have the story in these editions:
The Complete Short Stories, hardcover, Flamingo, 2001-11-00
