The Crystal World was published in 1966 and forms part of a post-apocalyptic triptych that also includes The Drowned World and The Drought. And how they do is almost as bizarre as the strange phenomenon itself.īut my favorite reviews was Rob Freeman’s 2015 piece at The Guardian, which called it “a petrified apocalypse.” The central conflict in The Crystal World has to do with how certain powerless characters in one place respond to it psychologically. There may be authorities somewhere trying to defeat the transformation spreading across our planet from three locales, but that isn’t part of this story. The crystallization threatening our planet has been working through the entire universe and is inevitable. Ballard’s world, however, that isn’t the drama which unfolds. If The Crystal World were a typical science fiction novel about an impending global disaster, it’d have scientists and military heroes working against the clock in suspenseful attempts to stop the apocalypse. Here’s a snippet from Eric McMillan’s article at The Greatest Literature of All Time blog. What about The Crystal World, then? Jeff’s short review sent me in search of more info, and it wasn’t hard to find. Charbuque (2002), The Shadow Year (2008), and Ahab’s Return: or, The Last Voyage (2018). Jeff’s novels include The Well-Built City Trilogy, The Portrait of Mrs. His marvelous short story “Exo-Skeleton Town” appeared in the very first issue of Black Gate (way back in 2001), and won the Imaginaire Award in France a few years later. When it comes to the beautiful and the weird, Jeff knows what he’s talking about. And the description of the narrator finally outmaneuvered by it and overtaken is both frightening and beautiful. The slow and then quickening crystalization of the world is freaky. It had this dual sensibility of being really pulpy and yet wonderfully deep.
I read it years ago, but I still remember it very vividly.
Ballard’s novel The Crystal World on Facebook yesterday: I was intrigued by my buddy Jeffrey Ford’s brief but enticing description of J.G. The Crystal World (Berkley Medallion, March 1967).
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