Product Description

In the 21st century, fluctuations in solar radiation have caused the ide-caps to melt and the seas to rise. Global temperatures have climbed, and civilization has retreated to the Arctic and Antarctic circles. London is a city now inundated by a primeval swamp, to which an expedition travels to record the flora and fauna of this new Triassic Age. This early novel by the author of CRASH and EMPIRE OF THE SUN is at once a fast paced narrative, a stunning evocation of a flooded, tropical London of the near future and a speculative foray into the workings of the unconscious mind.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #69553 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 175 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
This torrid, powerful 1962 novel--the 17th of Millennium's very strong SF Masterworks classic reprints--was a major turning point in J.G. Ballard's career. In this future our old world has been gradually drowned as global warming melts the ice-caps and primordial jungles and swamps have returned to tropical London, recreating the ancient ecology of the Triassic age. According to the logic of Ballardian "inner space", these Turkish-bath surroundings evoke the psychological suction of the deep past, calling the human "hindbrain" back to the enfolding warmth of the womb. The text is rich with dreamy phrases like "the fata morgana of the terminal lagoon" and "the brighter day of the interior, archaeopsychic sun". As various members of an expedition to London busy themselves with more or less futile schemes like draining Leicester Square in hope of loot, the passive central character Kerans moves in his own "neuronic odyssey" to a strange acceptance of and assimilation by this lushly transformed world, vanishing into a final epiphany of heat and light. There is little narrative drive or sense of story (fans of rip-roaring, action-adventure SF tend not to get on with Ballard). The Drowned World is a potent, sensual mood-piece--static, jewelled and unforgettable. --David Langford

About the Author
SALES POINTS * #17 in the Millennium SF Masterworks series, a library of the finest science fiction ever written * 'One of the brightest stars in post-war fiction' -- Kingsley Amis * 'There are those (I am among them) who would back Ballard as Britain's number one living novelist' -- John Sutherland, Sunday Times * 'This novel, with its brilliant descriptions of an inundated London and an ecology reverting to the Triassic, gained Ballard acceptance as a major author' -- Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

Customer Reviews

Thought provoking
I much preferred this to The Drought - the settings turn out to be more familiar and the characters seemed somewhat easier to relate to (though likeable would be going too far). The central idea of regression to thought patterns displayed millions of years ago by earlier life forms is a fascinating and quite sobering one.

Drowned world - the illustrated novel.
In a series of 36 stunningly beautiful watercolours - some double spreads - Dick French (born 1946) manages to perfectly evoke the claustrophobic hothouse atmosphere of Ballard's novel.

The flyleaf to this larger than A4 sized edition reads:
'The sun has gone mad and stripped the earth of its ionosphere. For decades blasting radiation has poured upon earth, melting the polar caps and turning permafrost into streams, rivers, oceans. Huge deltas have been built, lakes formed, seas have risen. The continents have been entirely altered. Jungles have crept and then rushed from the equator to Greenland. Siberia is a tropical nightmare. Mosquitoes the size of dragonflies carry horrendous new malarias. Mammals are on their way out and iguanas have grown as large as horses. Ferns and clubmosses smother those parts of ancient cities - New York, Berlin, Moscow, Peking- that are not drowned and offering steaming shelter to gigantic alligators and other saurians. As for humanity, well, there are only 5 million men and women left, living in the sub-tropical confinement of the Arctic and Antarctic circles.
It is as if history were rolled backward, as if the Triassic Age were here again. Man's science is useless against the solar furnace. And man's mind? Is that also slipping backward, far backward, to before the apes, to before the mammals, to the Triassic terror itself.
This novel- written in lucid, convincing, matter-of-fact prose - is both fierce and unsensational. It has a compelling authority which grips the reader at once and keeps him in its power long after the book is read. This is an unforgettable work.'

I'm not quite sure what Ballard is doing, but it's a lot of fun trying to figure it out
Plenty of superlatives have been thrown around to describe Ballard. In order to avoid that, my opening gambit will be a quote by Christopher Priest. "I'm not quite sure what Ballard is doing, but it's a lot of fun trying to figure it out."

If you want a summary of the plot read the other reviews, my intention here is just to note the pleasure and excitement of reading this book. In the novel, Ballard's obvious intention is to explore what we can do with the genre normally referred to as sci-fi. In a traditionally British way he decides not to make everything as big as possible but instead reduces the elements of the catastrophe to the psychology at play.

As you would expect from any Ballard book there's a twisted longing to become the centre of the catastrophe and an uncomfortable thrill in enjoying the world going to hell.

The Chapter 'A NEW PSCHOLOGY' is almost a manifesto in itself with regards to how Ballard would go on to create a whole new take on what H.G. Wells called scientific romance. The novel covers biological manipulation, time travel, ecological disaster and all in ways so original that it makes the mind whirl. It's dream like in so many ways, but most interestingly in that 'it seemed logical in the dream but now...' feeling so common when trying to relate your inner mental journeys to someone else.

This is the first book by Ballard that I have read an actually got the whole 'Ballard is a genius' thing. The prose is controlled and effective and after I had finished i went back to re-read some chapters again, just for the hell of it.

Strongly recommended.