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Cover blurb to the contrary, there is nothing “extraordinarily prophetic” about The Drowned World. Ballard's climate catastrophe is external; it arrives entirely outside mankind’s control. Solar storms—unpredictable, unpreventable—strip away the atmosphere, and the earth heats rapidly. Massive rivers of molten permafrost pour down from the north, essentially drowning Europe in mud. Humanity retreats to the poles as the earth’s flora and fauna rapidly devolve towards Triassic period norms. And ye
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"Nothing endures for so long as fear."
Surely one of the great post-apocalyptic novels and of the best sort: the ones that are eerily prescient. Here it's climate change, foisted on humanity not by humanity but by a swollen sun. It's humanity that botches the ethical follow-through. Global ocean levels rise and decades later, scientists float science-fleets south from humanity's polar last bastions, moor them over drowned, long-gone cities and study the reptilian heirs to most of the world.
That's ...more
Surely one of the great post-apocalyptic novels and of the best sort: the ones that are eerily prescient. Here it's climate change, foisted on humanity not by humanity but by a swollen sun. It's humanity that botches the ethical follow-through. Global ocean levels rise and decades later, scientists float science-fleets south from humanity's polar last bastions, moor them over drowned, long-gone cities and study the reptilian heirs to most of the world.
That's ...more
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