From Publishers Weekly
In one of Picador's first hardcover titles, Ballard (Crash) offers another of his tautly imagined experiments with 20th-century pathology. Here he traces an environmental crusade from its media-driven invasion of a South Seas atomic test site to its establishment of an endangered species' sanctuary, to its metamorphosis into an atavistic cult. Ballard's futuristic characters are nearly always less individual personalities than mutating preoccupations, and this cast of environmental utopians who quixotically strand themselves to save an albatross colony is no exception. Sixteen-year-old Neil Dempsey, who is drawn into the expedition by the charismatic, inscrutable "Dr. Barbara" (Rafferty), is joined by a Hawaiian who dreams of an independent island kingdom, a Boston Brahmin missionary, an animal-rightist airline stewardess and a band of German eco-hippies. Amid Ballard's hallucinatory evocation of the island's native flora, imported endangered fauna and abandoned military and scientific installations, Dr. Barbara proves ready to sacrifice anything or anyone for her unstable cause, whether to the international media, the island jungle or her artificial paradise. Although the naive and uncertain Neil proves a comparatively weak narrative lens for Dr. Barbara and her spiraling projects, Ballard's story moves tensely along, an apocalyptic cautionary tale for the millennium. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Jonathan Oliver's excellent narration is wasted on this tale of an ecological mission gone awry. Dr. Barbara, banned from medicine for practicing euthanasia, establishes a sanctuary for endangered species on a remote Pacific island. Neil, a fatherless 16-year-old, joins Barbara's project because he hopes "perhaps Dr. Barbara can protect me as well as the albatross." Neil is the doctor's most loyal follower, even when he discovers that she has resumed practicing euthanasia on healthy but bothersome members of the mission. The doctor also abandons the facade of running a sanctuary and focuses instead on her true desireAto create a Women's Republic that requires, for purposes of procreation, a single male. Neil is chosen to sire the next generation, and Barbara soon disposes of all unnecessary males. This depressing story of human savagery essentially goes nowhere and is recommended only where Ballard has a very strong following.ABeth Farrell, Portage Cty. Dist. Lib., OHCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Ballard is well known for his harrowing memoir of life under Japanese occupation during World War II, Empire of the Sun; he has also had a long and successful career writing science fiction. This new novel will add no luster to Ballard's reputation. Rather, it is the nasty and utterly humorless story of Dr. Barbara, who, through a series of accidents, French ineptitude, and media frenzy, is anointed the leader of an ecological utopia on a tiny island in a former nuclear test area of the South Pacific. Dr. Barbara is not really interested in preserving the endangered species for which her colony was supposedly founded; instead, she is attempting to create a society in which men have value only as breeders, and a very limited value at that. The book finds nothing of worth in feminism or environmentalism, seeing these only as examples of neopuritan extremism. No idealist of any stripe is shown as anything but a fool or a hypocrite. There may be requests for this book, based on Ballard's past glories, but it is certain to offend more readers than it pleases. Buy as demand dictates. George Needham

Review
"For over thirty years, Ballard has offered chilling, cautionary yet strangely exhilarating tales about humans who gamely follow their own worst instincts . . . A superb piece of storytelling, filled with supple turns and twists."—Michael Upchurch, Chicago Tribune

"Searing, visceral tragicomedy of epic proportions . . . probably Ballard's best and most accessible yet."—Kirkus Reviews

"Hilariously cold-blooded satire."—Katherine Dunn, The Washington Post Book World

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Rushing to Paradise tells the story of sixteen-year-old Neil Dempsey, who finds himself caught up in veteran campaigner Dr. Barbara Rafferty's obsessive crusade to save the albatross on the deserted Pacific atoll of Saint-Esprit. The threat to the rare birds' breeding ground comes from the French engineers and soldiers who have begun to build an airstrip on this former nuclear testing site. When Neil is shot on a rescue mission led by Dr. Barbara, the attention of the world's media turns to the tiny island and its stricken birds. International pressure drives away the French, and Saint-Esprit becomes a sanctuary - an island paradise for Neil, Dr. Barbara, environmentalists, and a collection of the world's endangered species. Paradise, however, is not what it seems....

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

In one of Picador's first hardcover titles, Ballard (Crash) offers another of his tautly imagined experiments with 20th-century pathology. Here he traces an environmental crusade from its media-driven invasion of a South Seas atomic test site to its establishment of an endangered species' sanctuary, to its metamorphosis into an atavistic cult. Ballard's futuristic characters are nearly always less individual personalities than mutating preoccupations, and this cast of environmental utopians who quixotically strand themselves to save an albatross colony is no exception. Sixteen-year-old Neil Dempsey, who is drawn into the expedition by the charismatic, inscrutable ``Dr. Barbara'' (Rafferty), is joined by a Hawaiian who dreams of an independent island kingdom, a Boston Brahmin missionary, an animal-rightist airline stewardess and a band of German eco-hippies. Amid Ballard's hallucinatory evocation of the island's native flora, imported endangered fauna and abandoned military and scientific installations, Dr. Barbara proves ready to sacrifice anything or anyone for her unstable cause, whether to the international media, the island jungle or her artificial paradise. Although the nave and uncertain Neil proves a comparatively weak narrative lens for Dr. Barbara and her spiraling projects, Ballard's story moves tensely along, an apocalyptic cautionary tale for the millennium. (May)

Katherine Dunn

"Hillariously cold-blooded satire."

Michael Upchurch