"The drowned world" is a book I have read several times, in several languages. Just like "The Martian chronicles", it symbolizes for me the "fin de siècle", end of an era, feeling that, being old, I can't help feeling sometimes. So when I discovered that Ballard had written a trilogy of "world", I had to read the others. "The Burning world", as far as I am concerned, is a variation on a theme. Much of the mood is very similar to the drowned world; it almost seems like an episode in a series. Not bad at all, but afaic, it doesn't rise to "The Drowned world".