"What's the Point of Free Speech if You Have Nothing to Say?"

"As you might suspect, there’s a lot of irony in Ballard. If his late (and very funny) books sound peculiar to American ears, it’s probably because of his very English tendency to play almost everything he says, however outrageous, at moderate to low volume. Unlike the noisier, New Yorkerish avant-garde types who like to shock and awe their readers, Ballard doesn’t shout or swear or get in your face. Even his most disturbing obscenities—the porn film sequence in 'Cocaine Nights,' say, or the endlessly salacious car-sex scenarios in his unforgettable 1973 novel 'Crash'—are as mannered and concise and unimpassioned as a GPS device’s soothing, digitally modulated voice describing how to reach the next gas station. (Excuse me—maybe that should read 'petrol station.')"

Scott Bradfield in The New York Times reviews Kingdom Come, J. G. Ballard's last novel.