Do we have a link for this claim? And if so, does it take account of the fact that large parts of the planet have always been uninhabitable but that this trend is actually reversing in many places?
That completely derailed me as well. I couldn’t stop thinking about how you can measure in satellite imagery how an amount of land equivalent to the size of the US has greened thanks to climate conditions in recent past.
Jon Hawksley
13 days ago
A nostalgic piece for when dystopian thoughts were acts of imagination that were often intriguing and playful. When, despite major differences on how to get there, there was a consensus of sorts on the values a community should aspire to and frequently a desire to balance the two sides – the aspiration to explore individuality and its impact on the well-being of others. Can we please go back to such times?
Mark Knight
13 days ago
The images from the Met Gala have always left me thinking ‘it’s like pre-revolution Versailles, they’re asking for it’. Maybe this year they have lost their heads and have dropped the subtleties!
Richard 0
13 days ago
Ballard was an extraordinary writer. Described as a Surrealist by some, his ability to get under one’s skin is unique. As this piece says, his ambiguity is what sets him apart. No statements, ideology – he’s far too clever for that. Read him a lot in my 20s and have dipped into occasionally since. Time for a re-read.
True. I have a copy of his collected short stories – I think it needs to be pushed to the top of my “to read” pile! So much great writing, so little time.
UnHerd Reader
13 days ago
In the future they going do crash theme party.driving each other crazy .in the met.cronenberg did fantastic job
Claire D
13 days ago
How about some leather bomber jackets like the street thugs in Super Cannes? like Woodrow Wilson’s own Blue Eagle SA Left wing enforcers.
That would be apposite
Dominic English
13 days ago
‘As parts of the planet become uninhabitable, and the movement of people across the globe breeds new conflicts, the super-rich are noticeably retreating to islands, gated communities, and the bunkers on their New Zealand estates.’
Hilarious. Who exactly is ‘noticing’ this Mark? I think it might just be you mate. Have you tried St John Wort?
And next year, presumably, William Burroughs Naked Lunch.
Paul Thompson
12 days ago
When I was an SF fan (30 years ago), Ballard was an amazing phenom. His stories had the air of the end of time, similar to some of Jack Vance’s stories (Last Castle). Ballard had the added element of weird perverse sex.
Tyler Durden
11 days ago
The nominally Irish-American writer of Hunger Games predicted the Democrat aristocracy of the future. Sure enough, they quickly became transhuman on the gender medical complex and state euthanasia. I think of her as the polite embodiment of the forces that would congeal in Republican populism and so a mirror of the paranoid liberalism of Margaret Atwood. Both presented literary simulacrum that challenge the simulation that is American culture to hit the accelerator further in realising dystopia in real-time.
“As parts of the planet become uninhabitable…”
Do we have a link for this claim? And if so, does it take account of the fact that large parts of the planet have always been uninhabitable but that this trend is actually reversing in many places?
That completely derailed me as well. I couldn’t stop thinking about how you can measure in satellite imagery how an amount of land equivalent to the size of the US has greened thanks to climate conditions in recent past.
A nostalgic piece for when dystopian thoughts were acts of imagination that were often intriguing and playful. When, despite major differences on how to get there, there was a consensus of sorts on the values a community should aspire to and frequently a desire to balance the two sides – the aspiration to explore individuality and its impact on the well-being of others. Can we please go back to such times?
The images from the Met Gala have always left me thinking ‘it’s like pre-revolution Versailles, they’re asking for it’. Maybe this year they have lost their heads and have dropped the subtleties!
Ballard was an extraordinary writer. Described as a Surrealist by some, his ability to get under one’s skin is unique. As this piece says, his ambiguity is what sets him apart. No statements, ideology – he’s far too clever for that. Read him a lot in my 20s and have dipped into occasionally since. Time for a re-read.
True. I have a copy of his collected short stories – I think it needs to be pushed to the top of my “to read” pile! So much great writing, so little time.
In the future they going do crash theme party.driving each other crazy .in the met.cronenberg did fantastic job
How about some leather bomber jackets like the street thugs in Super Cannes? like Woodrow Wilson’s own Blue Eagle SA Left wing enforcers.
That would be apposite
‘As parts of the planet become uninhabitable, and the movement of people across the globe breeds new conflicts, the super-rich are noticeably retreating to islands, gated communities, and the bunkers on their New Zealand estates.’
Hilarious. Who exactly is ‘noticing’ this Mark? I think it might just be you mate. Have you tried St John Wort?
The article is unreadable
Perhaps it’s because you have not read much Ballard?
Thank goodness…
And next year, presumably, William Burroughs Naked Lunch.
When I was an SF fan (30 years ago), Ballard was an amazing phenom. His stories had the air of the end of time, similar to some of Jack Vance’s stories (Last Castle). Ballard had the added element of weird perverse sex.
The nominally Irish-American writer of Hunger Games predicted the Democrat aristocracy of the future. Sure enough, they quickly became transhuman on the gender medical complex and state euthanasia. I think of her as the polite embodiment of the forces that would congeal in Republican populism and so a mirror of the paranoid liberalism of Margaret Atwood. Both presented literary simulacrum that challenge the simulation that is American culture to hit the accelerator further in realising dystopia in real-time.