“Though Kingdom Come is only now appearing in the U.S., it was originally published in Britain in 2006. Reading it after the financial crisis is an unsettling experience, not because of the unflattering picture of consumerism that it paints — standard Ballardian fare — but because the particular brand of decadence at its center seems almost too innocent. That may be a startling claim to make about a novel that presents the violent expulsion of immigrant communities as an outgrowth of the suburban ethos of “consumer choice,” but the problem isn’t with what Ballard envisions as being possible. Rather, it’s with what he identifies as the root cause. The greatest danger in a world of decadence, the novel suggests, is the mixture of an insatiable appetite for entertainment with widespread boredom.”
Tristan Deveney reviewing Kingdom Come
Ballard… sempre
