Para el psicólogo David Markham, la bomba que acaba de explotar en el aeropuerto de Heathrow es sólo un atentado más, hasta que descubre que entre las víctimas se encuentra su ex mujer, Laura. Decide investigar los movimientos radicales de protesta londinenses, lo que le lleva a entrar en contacto con un grupo clandestino que tiene su base en Chelsea Marina, una zona acomodada a orillas del Támesis. Bajo el liderazgo de un carismático doctor, el grupo pretende que la dócil clase media se rebele con violencia para liberarse de la carga de la responsabilidad civil y de las trampas y ataduras de la sociedad de consumo: escuelas privadas, niñeras extranjeras, seguros médicos y viviendas sobrevaloradas. Markham sólo busca la verdad tras la muerte de Laura, pero se ve envuelto en una campaña que rápidamente crece fuera de control. Todas las certezas de su vida se tambalean cuando los hitos de la clase media son objetivos de la violencia y el pánico empieza a apoderarse de la ciudad.

Middle class rebelling against what it created. Molotov cocktails made with Perrier bottle and regimental ties, "Bonfire of the Volovos", the book picks up on the most endangered sector of society trying to free itself from the world it worked for and created...or could it just be something meaningless. ( )

This is the seventh book I've read this month for my J.G. Ballard binge and I've decided it's going to be my last because I'm building up a residue of a theme, from these novels, that links them, and that is amplified with each next novel; a theme that might be condensed as "How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world."

As with every other Ballard novel I've read this month, Ballard's prose here is unique and flabbergasting (if that's a word). Nearly every sentence he writes is a condensed, nearly psychedelic rendering of a nihilistic and yet somehow excruciatingly beautiful worldview.

A bitter poetry that makes no apologies.

I feel like I've been flayed. ( )

Quickly bored with this one. Seems dry both as societal commentary and as a thriller. The middle-class rises up and causes terror? This seems to be almost like a dreary daydream that weedy teenagers fantasize about. How edgy!

Recommended for Palahniuk fans. ( )

A good example of the author's work. A lightly imagined other world peopled by thinnishly sketched characters. But the key thing is the underlying idea. Ballard was great at putting forward challenging ideas place in a world that was almost familiar. Here the revolt of the middle classes. The idea of revolutionary politics in an setting that is not just unlikely but inconceivable, except in the mind of a clever writer. ( )