One of the reasons why J. G. BALLARD became so
controversial during the 1960s was the pessimistic
tone that pervaded many of his stories, which frequently are filled with images of decay, disorder,
and apathy. Science fiction readers were used to
protagonists who solved problems, overcame obstacles, or on rare occasions died in the attempt.
They were not accustomed to people who accepted their fate, refused to struggle against the
perceived inevitable, and waited calmly for
doom to overtake them. “The Voices of Time” is a
case in point, a story in which not only is Powers,
the psychologist protagonist, doomed, but also the
entire human race and the universe itself.
The story is set in a not-too-distant future in
which a plague of narcosis is slowly beginning to
affect an increasing number of victims, plunging
them into a sleep from which they will never
waken. There has also been an explosion of mutations among plants and animals, extreme changes
in sensory apparatus, intelligence, and physical
form—changes that have neither a definable cause
nor any apparent purpose. There does seem to be a
connection with the silent pair, two dormant genes
that show up only in a small minority of individuals
within each species. Powers is troubled by the
death of a colleague who spent most of his last
days inscribing an intricate design on the floor of a
swimming pool, and by his knowledge of a sudden
decline in the human birthrate, dramatic in some
areas. He is also plagued by the attentions of a brilliant patient surgically deprived of the ability to
sleep, who tells him he is receiving messages from
the stars, in the form of strings of steadily declining
numbers.
The common cause of these phenomena,
which we learn only piecemeal, is that evolution
on each planet reaches a peak, then begins to decline, at which point certain individuals try desperately to mutate into a new form that will begin
another cycle. The countdowns from the stars include one that marks the end of the physical universe. Powers, deprived of all hope of an infinite
future, commits suicide. There is considerable
irony in the fact that, despite the downbeat conclusion, the story affirms that modern man is, after
all, the pinnacle of evolution, at least on Earth.