
J.G. Ballard’s 1962 science-fiction novel tells the story of biologist Robert Kerans, whose team is sent to survey the cities of northern Europe and America after radiation and the melting of the polar ice caps turn the regions into tropical lagoons devoid of human life. Among the few survivors, Kerans and his teammates marvel in what the world has become and liken it to an “archaeopsychic past, uncovering the ancient taboos and drives that have been dormant for epochs.” As TIME’s Lev Grossman wrote upon Ballard’s death last year, “It’s kind of too much … but kind of cool, too. The twist in [the book] was that the characters were perversely attracted to the destroyed world. They grieved for it, but they also, despite themselves, grooved on it.”