Absolutely love this trilogy too. The Drowned World was my first proper introduction to Ballard.

I'd always liked the movie Empire of the Sun since I was a kid, but could never quite put my finger on why. One day in 2020 I read the films wikipedia page, started reading more about him as an author and got hooked.

To quote John Gray [1],

>Unlike many others, it wasn't his dystopian vision that gripped my imagination. For me his work was lyrical – an evocation of the beauty that can be gleaned from landscapes of desolation.

1. https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2018/12/john-gray-on-jg...