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On the back there is a quote from Kingsley Amis "JG Ballard is one of the brightest new stars in post-war ficition" and the copyright page gives a date of 1967.

I enjoyed this book but I think it showed its age. This was both a plus and a minus.
The plus is high quality editing and a decent standard of English. The writing kept to the basic rules of English grammar. There was no misuse of words, slang phraseology or obscure sentence structure.
The minus was that some of the stories though well written lacked a certain novelty. I'm sure they were original when written but over 40 years later the plot lines are well used and unsurprising.

Another thing to note is that Ballard seems to be fond of North Africa and desert landscapes. So am I and as a result I enjoyed these settings, you may not.

If you are looking for modern innovative scifi this is probably not the book for you but on the other hand if you want to enjoy a solid scifi classic there are some gems in this collection.