DYSTOPIA #2 
The Drowned World by JG Ballard

Every time I read Ballard I am struck by how utterly brilliant, scarily accurate and chilling his writing is, whether speaking about our contemporary world or an imagined future.  In The Drowned World Ballard imagines a future where solar flares have destabilised the sun, burning off our ionosphere and causing the Earth's temperature to soar, melting the polar ice caps, flooding much of the land mass and returning life on the planet to Paleozoic conditions.  Under these conditions vegeation returns to tropical and swampy and reptiles and gigantic insects replace mammals as the dominant species.  Dr Kerans is part of a scientific expedition sent from mankind's last outpost in the Arctic to map the new geography of the flooded planet, a futile effort as the sun's temperature continues to increase and floods and storms change the shape of the land.  His narrative tells of the descent of the psyches of the expedition crew from their apex of evolution back down into their evoluationary past, reminding us as the best dystopias do of the flaws of our so-called civilization and the fragility of our dominance over the planet.