The setting for Cocaine Nights is the Costa del Sol and the stylish resort of Estrella de Mar. Into the queasy beauty of this artificial environmen...
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Dec 17, 2009
R.
rated it: 
Okay, let's look at this: Marc Bolan recorded "Dandy In the Underworld" which had lyrics which referred to 'cocaine nights'...then died in a car crash because his usual Rolls was loaned out to Hawkwind, an offshoot band project of sci-fi author Michael Moorcock, who was friendish with J.G. Ballard who wrote a book - three years earlier - about car crashes and then, you know, this book twenty years later.
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Nov 24, 2011
Vanessa
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This book started out with tremendous promise. That sounds more patronising than I would like. It blew my mind. Is that better? I couldn't believe I had avoided this author for so long. If you are an avid reader, not reading J.G. Ballard is like depriving yourself of air. Each sentence glitters with intelligence. The rhythm, the poise, the vocabulary, the imagery are all perfect. He has a fine sense of character and there is passion beneath his hard, cynical edge.
But as the book goes More...
But as the book goes More...
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Jan 08, 2012
Isabel
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Sep 11, 2008
Thylacoleo_carnifex
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Este parece ser el año de Ballard:
A la exposición homenaje montada en el Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona («J. G. Ballard: Autopsia del nuevo milenio» y con comisario a Jordi Costa) y a los planes del director canadiense Vincenzo Natali de llevar «Rascacielos» a la gran pantalla, se han sumado ahora la publicación de «Bienvenidos a Metro-Centre» -su nueva y tal vez última novela-; la edición de los cuentos reunidos en «Fiebre de guerra» -algunos de los cuales no habían si More...
A la exposición homenaje montada en el Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona («J. G. Ballard: Autopsia del nuevo milenio» y con comisario a Jordi Costa) y a los planes del director canadiense Vincenzo Natali de llevar «Rascacielos» a la gran pantalla, se han sumado ahora la publicación de «Bienvenidos a Metro-Centre» -su nueva y tal vez última novela-; la edición de los cuentos reunidos en «Fiebre de guerra» -algunos de los cuales no habían si More...
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Aug 08, 2011
This is a really timeless novel which, although written in the 1990's could take place in any modernt seaside resort. Ballard has really touched upon a subject which I felt represented pockets of modern society to a tee.
Ballards first person narrative really draws you into the world of the Costa Del Sol resorts which feature at the heart of this novel, and the 'psychological experiment' taking place there. The concept of crime inducing activity and community in a sleepy little retirement town More...
Ballards first person narrative really draws you into the world of the Costa Del Sol resorts which feature at the heart of this novel, and the 'psychological experiment' taking place there. The concept of crime inducing activity and community in a sleepy little retirement town More...
Sep 26, 2009
LindyLouMac
rated it:
Set in a Spanish ex-pat community this a tense thriller written with sarcastic wit that explores to quote from the text , ‘a social economy based on drug-dealing, theft, pornography and escort services from top to bottom a condominium of crime’.
Charles Prentice arrives in this strange community to discover just why his brother Frank, manager of the local sports club as confessed to a charge of murdering five people in a house fire! Everyone, apart from the local police, is so sure of More...
Charles Prentice arrives in this strange community to discover just why his brother Frank, manager of the local sports club as confessed to a charge of murdering five people in a house fire! Everyone, apart from the local police, is so sure of More...
May 04, 2009
Alex
rated it:
I was not expecting a detective mystery, what with the titular title and Ballard's notoriety for depicting transgression. I read Crash and The Atrocity Exhibition back in college during my Burroughs phase and found them both a little dry for my tastes. I thought the same of this book and almost put it down, but I read the first chapter of his excellent 1962 sci-fi novel The Drowned World and found shocking similarities in this book written thirty years later. Both deal with persistence of human
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Mar 28, 2010
Maxime
rated it: 
The sheer existence of such a publication proves that 1) If there is a God, She is a cruel sadist who makes readers pick up books with funky titles on the weight of the sheer hype of the author and that the book had been actually shortlisted for numerous prizes, before bludgeoning them (the reader) with the most ridiculous plots, the most cliché phrases, the most flat and/or plagiarized characters, and the worst command of the English language coupled with scaling-walls-with-fingernails-awful wr
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Nov 10, 2010
Joe
rated it:
OK. I didn't actually read Cocaine Nights. I listened to it. I picked it up at the library for something to listen to during the commute, knowing that J.G. Ballard is fairly well-regarded as an author.
I didn't like this book at all. Consider the fact that I finished it as a testament to how bad radio is in my hometown, and not how good the book is. The plot was both uninspired and predictable, the scenes that I assume were there to titillate weren't titillating, and Ballard's similes w More...
I didn't like this book at all. Consider the fact that I finished it as a testament to how bad radio is in my hometown, and not how good the book is. The plot was both uninspired and predictable, the scenes that I assume were there to titillate weren't titillating, and Ballard's similes w More...
Jul 05, 2011
Polly
rated it:
This is a great book. It sucks you in and suddenly you are on a roller coaster of horrendous activity that you start to accept, as despite yourself you get caught up in the ride -and then it spits you out abruptly and leaves you in an uneasy state of anxiety. At all times an objective view of the protagonist is presented, the events are not convincingly sugarcoated, and for everything you are given a massive glaringly obvious warning in advance, but still the ending unfolds like an underhand dea
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Feb 16, 2010
Erik
rated it:
The primary question of this book is... how do you keep entertained when you've grown bored with everything?
It's a similar question that Ballard asks in his similar Super-Cannes, and I think it's a fitting query for a world in which machines and technology grant the world (at least, western citizens) an increasingly large amount of leisure time.
I enjoy Ballard because he has a skillful way of both telling an entertaining story and broaching deeper philosophical quandries. More...
It's a similar question that Ballard asks in his similar Super-Cannes, and I think it's a fitting query for a world in which machines and technology grant the world (at least, western citizens) an increasingly large amount of leisure time.
I enjoy Ballard because he has a skillful way of both telling an entertaining story and broaching deeper philosophical quandries. More...
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Apr 20, 2010
Maria
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I wanted to like this book far more than I did. As with 'Crash', Ballard confronts the excesses of contemporary society with unflinching conviction and a knack for nauseating medical details. The story rests on the intelligent conceit of an expat mediterranean society that utilizes crime as a means to wake itself up from valium induced stupor. Instigated by an evergreen ex tennis pro who envisions a world where people are forced to connect with their surroundings in a manner that involves both c
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Mar 31, 2010
Erik
rated it:
The perfect book, I suppose, has three things going for it: (1) great, realistic characters, who are transformed in believable, often desirable ways, (2) an interesting and perhaps unpredictable plot that holds our attention, not to mention holds water in whatever stream of reality the story finds itself, and (3) eloquent writing.
And then we have Cocaine Nights by J.G. Ballard, author of Crash and Empire of the Sun.
“Crossing frontiers is my profession,” Charles Prentice More...
And then we have Cocaine Nights by J.G. Ballard, author of Crash and Empire of the Sun.
“Crossing frontiers is my profession,” Charles Prentice More...
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Nov 12, 2009
Dawn
rated it:
It started out slow, but the more I read the more sucked in I became. The story centers around a man (Charles) who has come to visit his younger brother (Frank) who has been jailed. Frank is accused of murdering five people who live in the resort/retirement community that Frank owns. He pleads guilty but Charles (and everyone else) is convinced that Franks is innocent. So who really did it and why is Frank saying he's guilty? That's what the book centers around. At first Charles goes around inte
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Aug 23, 2008
Emma
rated it: 
What is it with ageing male writers and 'disturbing' dystopian visions of the fate of humanity? Along with McCarthy's "The Road" or Houellebecq's "Atomised", Ballard spends the whole novel beating us about the head with another tired, gloomy, and inevitably terminal prognosis for the world.
Cocaine Nights, sadly, lacks the poetic prose of "The Road" or the more robust intellectualism of Houellebecq. It revolves around one central premise. We're all headin More...
Cocaine Nights, sadly, lacks the poetic prose of "The Road" or the more robust intellectualism of Houellebecq. It revolves around one central premise. We're all headin More...
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Mar 15, 2009
Bob
rated it:
Ballard has had several distinct phases (the 60s science fiction, the 70s dystopian view of technology in Crash and High Rise, his 80s move into somewhat more mainstream literary fiction) but this 1996 quasi-murder mystery knits together elements of all - the obsession with the tropics from his earliest days, an apocalyptic view of human society and so on. The 1001 Books gang, having selected 7 of his books, suggest that all these phases are worth a look
Nov 27, 2010
Bryan
rated it:
Reads like a collision of The Wicker Man and The Prisoner with shocking similarities to Palahniuk's Fight Club. Builds up the first half like a classic whodunnit but rather than weigh down the second half with detective procedural details, it gradually reveals the mystery by placing the narrator in startlingly similar circumstances in the present tense. Totally compelling and driven by a troubling philosophy that a part of me agrees with completely.
Jan 30, 2012
K
rated it:
This is the first book by J.G. Ballard I have read, and probably the last. I was suprised by the dire quality of the writing from such a respected author, it's cliched and full of some of the clumsiest similes I have ever read. The characters are one dimensional and unbelievable and the dystopian 'leisure-world' depicted and indeed the whole premise of the novel are a stretch. Its been a long while since I've read a book I've found as fundamentally disagreeable as this one.
Jan 29, 2012
Andrew
rated it:
First of all, I am glad to use a generic blank cover for this book (this might change in the future, my friend) in order to dispel the intrusion of market forces on the individual reader's passions. (Is this site a extension of market forces, or are we really an online community?).
This is my forth attempt at Ballard's oeuvre, and I find it to be a slight rehash of his distopian themes in the guise of a detective novel: a crime has been committed, suspects are developed, there are a More...
This is my forth attempt at Ballard's oeuvre, and I find it to be a slight rehash of his distopian themes in the guise of a detective novel: a crime has been committed, suspects are developed, there are a More...
Nov 17, 2008
Suzanne
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Oct 09, 2010
Splashconception
rated it:
An interesting exploration of the lives of wealthy leasiure class socialites of the coastal communities who have nothing to do and live lives famished of any sort of real excitement and so have to generate excitement through one tennis player who commits a series of crimes.
Jan 01, 2011
Rob
rated it:
But by Jove, this was a lot of fun. An awful lot of fun. Ballard opens up this incredible space, decadent and languorous and seditious. The characters are amazing and fumes of paranoia and melodrama drift from the page, so it's all pretty intoxicating.
Sep 30, 2011
Huw
rated it:
I loved this book; a Spanish retirement resort where people are "reawoken" by a messianic psychopath, where rape, burglary and murder are the tools used to prevent flabby expats sinking into their Sangria filled mire. Ballard writes of dystopias that are close to the world we know and mock.
Jan 08, 2011
Carlo Andrea
rated it:
Un "buon Ballard" ma non ai livelli de "Il condominio" e "Super Cannes". Soprattutto mi sembra che la storia si rifaccia a quest'ultimo però senza averne il respiro e la profondità.
Apr 21, 2010
Lindsay
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Ballard skillfully created an abnormal 'holiday' world in this book, and the problems that can arise from that. His characters were realistic and gritty and the story kept me turning the pages.
Apr 08, 2010
Jeremy
rated it:
You never forget your first Ballard. It's like seeing society through the lens of a dispassionate primate observer, some alien anthropologist, who sees the links we could never see... too close.
Jan 11, 2012
Ian
rated it:
Enjoyed it right up to the final twist, which I found unconvincing. I couldn't justify his actions; his motivation was too uncommitted and he was too much the observer to that point to follow the path laid out for him.
Jan 11, 2012
Powersamurai
rated it:
The cover of my copy carries the Independent comment, "Dazzlingly original". The only thing dazzling about this book is the shiny silver cover of this edition.
Apr 27, 2011
Jerman
rated it:
Ballard sucked me into a mystery. I don't appreciate that. About halfway I was really into it. Abrupt end, but fitting if you consider it from the writers perspective, and Ballard's general ideas about resolution.
Great if you like mysteries. I don't.
Great if you like mysteries. I don't.
Dec 24, 2010
Braddburk
rated it:
My first Ballard book. It was decent sort of read. Far fetched plot, unbelievable characters, etc. Nonetheless a good trashy beach read.
