This is a study of the novels of J.G. Ballard which considers his work not only within the science-fiction genre, but also connected to issues of popular culture and legitimation, postmodernism and the legacy of the avant-garde. The study travels over many terrains which are more or less foreign to science fiction, such as existentialism, Surrealism, Pop Art, psychoanalysis, ethnologies of contemporary modernity, and the theory of autobiography.