The Sunday Times of London reviews J.G. Ballard’s new one, Super Cannes.

The

Ballardian law of the universe runs

thus: every idealistic attempt by human

society to organise itself into

progressive or “higher” forms will,

inevitably, precipitate catastrophe.

Interesting catastrophe, of course.

The high-rise block degenerates into a jungle; the motorway

system (as in Crash) becomes a 70mph, high-tech killing

ground; the leisure city of the future (as in Cocaine Nights)

decays into Sodom by the Med. Plan a housing estate such as

Paulsgrove in Portsmouth and you are writing a programme for

lynch law….

An engaging feature in Ballard’s fiction is his cavalier

indifference to the laws that hobble lesser writers (who else

would introduce Elizabeth Taylor into a novel in which the hero

is called J G Ballard?).

And the Guardian-Observer’s reviewer says: “…vintage Ballard, a gripping blend of

stylised thriller and fantastic imaginings rendered in deceptively

bland, unruffled prose. One of its virtues lies simply in its

compulsive readability; as the story unfolds, the reader is

engaged at the level of pure plot…”