3rd trade paperback printing

 

Condition: Very good plus, light edge and corner wear, light soiling on white part of rear cover, price sticker on rear cover. Softcover.

 

Publishing Info: Dent and Sons, London, 1992

ISBN: 9780460022576

 

First published in 1962, J.G. Ballard's mesmerizing and ferociously prescient novel imagines a terrifying future in which solar radiation and global warming have melted the polar ice caps and Triassic-era jungles have overrun a submerged and tropical London. 

Set during the year 2145, the novel follows biologist Dr. Robert Kerans and his team of scientists as they confront a surreal city-scape populated by giant iguanas, albino alligators, and endless swarms of malarial insects. Nature has swallowed all but a few remnants of human civilization, and, slowly, Kerans and his companions are transformed—both physically and psychologically—by this prehistoric environment. 

Echoing Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness—complete with a mad white hunter and his hordes of native soldiers—this "powerful and beautifully clear" (Brian Aldiss) work becomes a thrilling adventure and a haunting examination of the effects of environmental collapse on the human mind.

 

More science fiction at shop books

 

J.G. Ballard BBC documentary