Editing J. G. Ballard (section)

==Dystopian fiction==
{{More citations needed section|date=August 2016}}
With the exception of his autobiographical novels, Ballard most commonly wrote in the post-apocalyptic [[dystopia]] genre.

His most celebrated novel in this regard is ''Crash'', in which the characters (the protagonist, called Ballard, included) become increasingly obsessed with the violent psychosexuality of car crashes in general, and celebrity car crashes in particular. Ballard's novel was turned into a controversial film by David Cronenberg.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/jgballard| title = JG Ballard – Prospect Magazine| access-date = 1 October 2021| archive-date = 13 June 2021| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210613214928/https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/jgballard| url-status = live}}</ref>

Particularly revered among Ballard's admirers is his short story collection ''[[Vermilion Sands]]'' (1971), set in an eponymous desert resort town inhabited by forgotten starlets, insane heirs, very eccentric artists, and the merchants and bizarre servants who provide for them. Each story features peculiarly exotic technology such as cloud-carving sculptors performing for a party of eccentric onlookers, poetry-composing computers, orchids with operatic voices and egos to match, [[phototropic]] self-painting canvases, etc. In keeping with Ballard's central themes, most notably technologically mediated masochism, these tawdry and weird technologies service the dark and hidden desires and schemes of the human castaways who occupy Vermilion Sands, typically with psychologically grotesque and physically fatal results. In his introduction to ''Vermilion Sands'', Ballard cites this as his favourite collection.

In a similar vein, his collection ''[[Memories of the Space Age]]'' explores many varieties of individual and collective psychological fallout from—and initial deep archetypal motivations for—the American space exploration boom of the 1960s and 1970s.

[[Will Self]] has described much of his fiction as being concerned with "idealised gated communities; the affluent, and the ennui of affluence [where] the virtualised world is concretised in the shape of these gated developments." He added in these fictional settings "there is no real pleasure to be gained; sex is commodified and devoid of feeling and there is no relationship with the natural world. These communities then implode into some form of violence."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.watershed.co.uk/audio-video/john-gray-and-will-self-jg-ballard|title=John Gray and Will Self – JG Ballard|website=Watershed|access-date=21 May 2018|archive-date=14 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170814020656/http://www.watershed.co.uk/audio-video/john-gray-and-will-self-jg-ballard|url-status=live}}</ref> Budrys, however, mocked his fiction as "call[ing] for people who don't think ... to be the protagonist of a J. G. Ballard novel, or anything more than a very minor character therein, you must have cut yourself off from the entire body of scientific education".<ref name="budrys196612">{{Cite magazine
 |last=Budrys
 |first=Algis
 |date=December 1966
 |title=Galaxy Bookshelf
 |url=https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v25n02_1966-12_modified#page/n91/mode/2up
 |magazine=Galaxy Science Fiction
 |pages=125–133
 }}</ref>

In addition to his novels, Ballard made extensive use of the short story form. Many of his earliest published works in the 1950s and 1960s were short stories, including influential works like ''[[Chronopolis (short story)|Chronopolis]].''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://fictionphile.com/20-most-influential-science-fiction-short-stories-of-the-20th-century/|title=20 Most Influential Science Fiction Short Stories of the 20th Century|website=FictionPhile.com|author=Boyd, Jason|access-date=9 February 2019|date=7 February 2019|archive-date=14 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200614122032/https://fictionphile.com/20-most-influential-science-fiction-short-stories-of-the-20th-century/|url-status=live}}</ref> In an essay on Ballard, [[Will Wiles]] notes how his short stories "have a lingering fascination with the domestic interior, with furnishing and appliances", adding, "it's a landscape that he distorts until it shrieks with anxiety". He concludes that "what Ballard saw, and what he expressed in his novels, was nothing less than the effect that the technological world, including our built environment, was having upon our minds and bodies."<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://placesjournal.org/article/the-corner-of-lovecraft-and-ballard/|title=The Corner of Lovecraft and Ballard|first=Will|last=Wiles|date=20 June 2017|journal=Places Journal|issue=2017|access-date=21 May 2018|doi=10.22269/170620|doi-access=free|archive-date=2 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180602153227/https://placesjournal.org/article/the-corner-of-lovecraft-and-ballard/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Ballard coined the term ''inverted Crusoeism''. Whereas the original [[Robinson Crusoe]] became a castaway against his own will, Ballard's protagonists often choose to maroon themselves; hence inverted Crusoeism (e.g., ''[[Concrete Island]]''). The concept provides a reason as to why people would deliberately maroon themselves on a remote island; in Ballard's work, becoming a castaway is as much a healing and empowering process as an entrapping one, enabling people to discover a more meaningful and vital existence.