As one of collections intros said, Ballard is science fiction, but Inner Space, not Outer Space.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Short_Stories_of_...

But going beyond "going native" as a response to modern life towards in a more integrated or conscious way. Going forwards to a weird future of new behaviour rather than backwards to savagery.

He had a very eventful life. Across very eventful times.

I think the short stories work better than most of the longform although "the wind from nowhere" and "empire of the sun are very good".

I also think it's useful to remember he wasn't writing in a vacuum, British SF was exploring all kinds of forms, Michael Moorcock wrote deconstructed novels where chapter readings before flow text carried a whole emotional plane not exposed in the plot (the condition of muzak) and Brian Aldiss expored SF literary criticism taking the genre seriously for almost the first time. He was a writer in a context of exploratory writing.

I will give his other works a read. I tried reading Crash multiple times but it was a bit too gory for me.