num_pages: 160
description: In contrast to Ballard's earlier novel The Drowned World, The Burning World describes a world in which water is scarce. After an extensive drought, rivers have turned to trickles and the earth to dust, causing the world's populations to head toward the oceans in search of water. The drought is caused by industrial waste flushed into the ocean, which form an oxygen-permeable barrier of saturated long-chain polymers that prevents evaporation and destroys the precipitation cycle. Since the novel was published, neustonic plastic islands covering measurable percentages of the Pacific Ocean have been discovered.
language: English
title: The Burning World
titlecomplete: The Burning World
characters: Philip Jordan, Catherine Austen, Charles Ransom
genres: 20th Century, Post Apocalyptic, Science Fiction, Climate Change, Novels, Science Fiction Fantasy, Apocalyptic, Fiction, Dystopia, Speculative Fiction
ratings_count: 2574
publisher: Berkley Books