One of my favorite authors and highly recommend his short stories [1] and the "ambiguous apocalypse" trilogy - The Drowned World, The Burning World, and The Crystal World.
As one of collections intros said, Ballard is science fiction, but Inner Space, not Outer Space.
I absolutely loved The Crystal World. It's a unique, weird fever dream of a novel. I still find myself thinking about it at random times, even while being unsure if the book really makes sense.
The Burning World is rarely talked about. How is it?
Always tempting to say the dehumanising influences of his childhood informed his writing but I think that's unfair to his own sensibility and idea of modern creative writing.
He had a very eventful life. Across very eventful times.
I think the short stories work better than most of the longform although "the wind from nowhere" and "empire of the sun are very good".
I also think it's useful to remember he wasn't writing in a vacuum, British SF was exploring all kinds of forms, Michael Moorcock wrote deconstructed novels where chapter readings before flow text carried a whole emotional plane not exposed in the plot (the condition of muzak) and Brian Aldiss expored SF literary criticism taking the genre seriously for almost the first time. He was a writer in a context of exploratory writing.
Love his work. Many of Ballards books seem to be like Heart of Darkness but from the point of view of Kurtz.
But going beyond "going native" as a response to modern life towards in a more integrated or conscious way. Going forwards to a weird future of new behaviour rather than backwards to savagery.
It seems like the best authors - JG Ballard in this instance - are somehow resistant to modern biographers. Even the least worst Phillip K Dick biography (Divine Invasions) is over 30 years old!
A favourite of mine. Do please check the interviews with him on youtube. Some authors try to show you the far future, he tried to show us the next 15 minutes.
As one of collections intros said, Ballard is science fiction, but Inner Space, not Outer Space.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Short_Stories_of_...
The Burning World is rarely talked about. How is it?
He had a very eventful life. Across very eventful times.
I think the short stories work better than most of the longform although "the wind from nowhere" and "empire of the sun are very good".
I also think it's useful to remember he wasn't writing in a vacuum, British SF was exploring all kinds of forms, Michael Moorcock wrote deconstructed novels where chapter readings before flow text carried a whole emotional plane not exposed in the plot (the condition of muzak) and Brian Aldiss expored SF literary criticism taking the genre seriously for almost the first time. He was a writer in a context of exploratory writing.
But going beyond "going native" as a response to modern life towards in a more integrated or conscious way. Going forwards to a weird future of new behaviour rather than backwards to savagery.
I will give his other works a read. I tried reading Crash multiple times but it was a bit too gory for me.
Like a lot of his books they seem simple until you dig into them. They fry my brain a bit but that’s surrealism for you.
Will Self has some good writing about Ballard.