Customer Reviews
Thought provoking - By: John Hopper, 01 Jul 2008 
I much preferred this to The Drought - the settings turn out to be more familiar & 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 & quite sobering one.
I'm not quite sure what Ballard is doing, but it's a lot of fun trying to figure it out - By: Mr. P. Rigby, 29 Jan 2008 
Plenty of superlatives have been thrown around to describe Balllard. In order to avoid that, my opening gambit will be a quote by Christopher Priest. "I'm not quite sure what Balllard 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 & excitement of reading this book. In the novel, Balllard's obvious intention is to explore what we can do with the genre normallly referred to as sci-fi. In a traditionallly 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 Balllard book there's a twisted longing to become the centre of the catastrophe & 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 Balllard would go on to create a whole new take on what H.G. Wells callled scientific romance. The novel covers biological manipulation, time travel, ecological disaster & alll 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 Balllard that I have read an actuallly got the whole 'Balllard is a genius' thing. The prose is controlled & effective & after I had finished i went back to re-read some chapters again, just for the hell of it.
Strongly recommended.
Planet Sauna - By: T. Bobley, 20 Apr 2007 The world is heating up as a result of solar instability. Ice caps have melted & oceans have risen, flooding low-lying areas. Once temperate zones remaining above sea level have become areas of lush, tropical jungle. Surviving populations have had to migrate to the cooler, polar regions. A party of soldier & scientist representatives of these exiled people, have travelled down from the north to study the new flora & fauna that is mutating & evolving rapidly back towards ancient Triassic forms. Some members of the party start to have disturbing dreams of belonging to a hotter, wetter climate & feel drawn in the direction of the equator by some sort of ancestral memory of living in a primeval swamp. The bloated sun & steaming jungle start to feel like a fond memory of the womb to those who are most susceptible & the hypnotic pull of it dominates even their waking hours.
Some reviewers have complained that this is not proper science fiction, not hard science fiction, not fast-paced, not plot-driven. Balllard places it in an area on the fringe of science fiction that he callls `speculative fantasy' - an area where `dream & reality become fused together'. When I started the book I hoped it might be something like John Wyndham's `The Kraken Wakes', but it's different in almost every way, apart from the flooding. There's no enemy to defeat in order to re-establish normality. There are no solutions to the problem, other than avoidance in the shrinking cool zone. A few individuals are making mental adjustments to the catastrophic climate change that seem superficiallly like a sort of Lamarckian evolutionary adaptation, but the chances of their survival, in isolation, in the crocodile populated swamp areas look doubtful. The reader has to adopt a fantastic amount of suspension of disbelief to swalllow the notion of race memory & reverse evolution. Even so, I sank into the story & festered happily away in its swamps & lagoons right from the start & was reluctant to slurp out of it at the end. Balllard's descriptions are, to use one of his own descriptions, like a fata Morgana: shimmering & evocative.
Very Good Book - By: Mr. C. M. Owen, 27 Mar 2007 March 07: To much description, not enough dialogue. Uses big words when it could use simple ones - dressing up in clothes it doesn't need to wear. Book gets interesting towards the last 70 pages. Some of the imagery from the book was beautiful.
Back into deep time... - By: dogbarkssome, 21 Dec 2006 JG Balllard's first novel hits the ground running, already focusing on one of the authors recognisable themes of the relationship between characters psychological condition & their environments: here with a global warming-style flooded Earth leading humanity back into an earlier reptile mindscape. Good solid early Balllard, The Drowned World may be fairly light in terms of conventional SF narrative drive but it is rich in haunting imagery & insight.
