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_...
The Burning World is rarely talked about. How is it?
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.
Like a lot of his books they seem simple until you dig into them. They fry my brain a bit but that’s surrealism for you.
Will Self has some good writing about Ballard.