[0x69420]

kingdom come, the last book written before his death, at once falls tremendously short of his reputation for prescience on the literal level, but exceeds with flying colours in prescience on the metaphorical level. the median-age HN reader would probably do well to start with it, as its zeitgeist will still be kicking around somewhere in your memory and so it will be in some sense maximally relatable of his bibliography. then work backwards to taste.

[twic]

I'd tentatively suggest The Concrete Island. It's not at all science-fictional, but it manages to wring a lot of weirdness out of a completely pedestrian (if you will) setting. It was written in 1974, but I think it works just as well today (just imagine his phone got broken in the accident).

[ghaff]

I'd actually recommend picking and choosing a number of his short stories. Quite a number are pretty experimental but lots of good ones.

[nervousvarun]

Good call. Personally I point people towards High-Rise which is an older book but has the benefit of being made into a pretty good relatively recent movie staring Tom Hiddleston. US perspective here, but it seems prescient in a weird Ballardian way as well w/ what may or may not be happening (who can tell unless it happens to you anymore) in Denver: https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-law-firm-repo...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Rise_(novel)

[jhbadger]

I didn't like the movie of High-Rise because it changes the whole point of the book. In the movie it was conflict between the rich and poor people in the apartment tower (basically redoing Snowpiercer but in a building). In the book, it was clear this was a luxury building. Everyone is wealthy if they can afford to live there. The point was that these people were so bored with their comfortable lives that they started fighting each other for no reason.

[andybak]

I didn't know that and I think it's a shame in hindsight that they decided to diverge in that clunky way.

I would like to defend the movie in one important regard. It felt like a Ballard movie. Grey, concrete, very British and very 70s but also dreamlike and somewhat surreal.

I can't think of another movie that achieved that.

[radarsat1]

I thought the point was more that although everyone in the building were wealthy, some were more wealthy than others, a comment on the human nature of letting even the most miniscule differences take on adversarial meaning when isolated.

[defrost]

The novel, as I recall, didn't start out stratified by wealth etc. It begins with a new arrival to a recently completed high-rise building.

The wikipedia page, for what that's worth, appears to agree:

     Life in the high-rise begins to degenerate quickly, as minor power failures and petty grievances among neighbours and between rival floors escalate into an orgy of violence. Skirmishes become frequent throughout the building as whole floors of tenants try to claim lifts and hold them for their own. Groups gather to defend their rights to the swimming pools, and party-goers attack "enemy floors" to raid and vandalise them.

The outcome is as you recall:

    The lower, middle, and upper floors of the building gradually stratify into distinct groups.

I believe it's a thesis of Ballard's that no matter the initial state social systems evolve (for the worse) into stratified rivalries, I suspect this may have been burnt into his soul by his experieces as a young boy interned during Japanese occupation.

~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Rise_(novel)

[radarsat1]

Nice thanks for that, it's been a while since both I read the novel and saw the film. That's actually a much more nuanced and intriguing take. I might have to reread it now! This article makes me want to read the rest of his works, too.

[twic]

I liked the film as a film. You're right that it's not a faithful adaptation.