This chapter focuses on three early narratives by J.G. Ballard and consider how Ballard’s near-future landscapes emerge from a collision of various artistic and literary forces. It argues that by fusing perspectives in visual art with science fictional motifs, Ballard’s early narratives produced socio-political messages which challenged literary o…[Read more]

Emerging from the fin-de-siècle writings of H.G. Wells, British disaster fiction maintained a perpetual link, prior to the Second World War, with the distinctive sub-genre of scientific romance. Following the war, the genre was temporarily revived for a Cold War audience by John Wyndham through novels including “The Day of the Triffids” (1951)…[Read more]