"Terminal Atrocity Zone" examines a critical 7-year period in the work of author J G Ballard, ranging from 1966 to 1973. During this time, Ballard produced the series of "condensed novels" which would eventually form his book The Atrocity Exhibition; began a series of "surgical fictions"; created a series of collages and other printed art-pieces; staged his controversial Crashed Cars exhibition in London; made Crash!, a television film on automobile culture; and initiated the ideas and texts which would culminate in the publication of his key novel, Crash.

"Terminal Atrocity Zone" includes a detailed overview of this period, with various original essays, and also with revealing interviews from the time in which Ballard discusses his work and ideas in depth; plus a section of works by Ballard himself, including: Coitus 80, the first "surgical fiction"; Journey Across A Crater, an experimental "condensed" blueprint for many of the ideas later developed in Crash; Ballard's own forewords from foreign-language editions of The Atrocity Exhibition and Crash; and Ballard's cryptic collage series of Advertiser's Announcements, created between 1967 and 1971.

Also included is the first published analysis of Ballard's terminal, unfinished novel, World Versus America.

"Terminal Atrocity Zone" comprises an essential document of one of the world's most original and controversial authors at the seminal point of his creativity.