Let’s get the elephant out of the room first: yes, it sounds a little bit like a science fiction retelling of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Sanders and the other adventurers need to decide whether they keep going into the forest risking to change into crystal themselves or run for their lives and forget about what they came for. They’re literally turning into crystal and gemstones. On his way through the jungle, he’s witness to a strange phenomenon: plants and animals start crystallizing around him. He travels to the city of Port Matarre, hoping to reunite with his colleague and ex-mistress Suzanne. The Crystal World tells the story of Edward Sanders, a doctor running a leprosy treatment facility in Africa. The man did his own thing and eluded classification like a Ninja. It’s not exactly science fiction either, but it’s much closer to it than his later material. In The Crystal World, characters from the colonial era are confronted to a problem that seems to be alien. His early material was different, though. Although he’s uncomfortably prescient, Ballard writes stories about alternate presents and people living in conditions similar to us. If you’ve read him, you know it isn’t exactly the case. Iconic British author J.G Ballard is most often described to be a science fiction writer. * This review contains very mild spoilers *
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