Synopsis
Only the tops of the world’s great cities remained above sea level and the remnants of civilization fought an unusual battle against strange dreams.
History
First publication: Science Fiction Adventures No. 24, January 1962
Review
With this short version of the Drowned World, we get a story similar to The Wind From Nowhere, including the focus on a small group of characters and a narrower part of the world. In this however, we have a much better story than the Wind From Nowhere. Even with the narrow focus we get a very good sense of what the world has become. Typically, Ballard takes the basic scientific idea of increased solar activity melting the polar caps to an extreme in order to destroy the whole world and reduce civilization back to a primitive level. He describes the world flooded with water in very surreal terms, invoking the art of Delvaux and Ernst—both Surrealist painters. Ernst especially seems to have strongly influenced this story. Ultimately the story suffers from a sense that we are reading just a portion of a longer novel, which may be the case. Only a few months later Ballard published the novel length expanded version of this story. The short version is an enjoyable story, recommended to more than just Ballard fans but anybody whole loves a good dystopia. It just doesn’t rise to greatness.
Videos
We have the story in these editions:
Science Fiction Adventures, No. 24, edited by John Carnell, magazine, Nova Publications, Ltd., 1962-01-00
