A visionary writer of eerily prophetic dystopias, JG Ballard first came to prominence as part of the New Wave of British science fiction writing during the 1960s. His early novels, such as The Drowned World and The Drought, alternated with a large output of sci-fi short stories, but by the 1970s Ballard had started to focus on a more singular vision of contemporary dystopias based around twisted sex, class war and the evils of consumerism. Seminal works like Crash and High Rise date from this period of Ballard’s writing. Alongside his dark allegories he wrote two war novels, Empire of the Sun and The Kindness of Women, based heavily on his own experiences in wartime Japan and post-war Shanghai respectively.
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