Dr. Charles Ransom watches his world dry up along with his marriage: an industrial film has coated the oceans, evaporation has stalled, and rivers, lakes and reservoirs are shrinking into cracked mud across the globe. As neighbors flee the drying city for the coast, Ransom refuses to leave, staying behind on his houseboat with others unwilling to go -- a woman running an improvised zoo, a boatman, an architect turning his estate into something like a fortress. As the water keeps disappearing and order breaks down, each of them must decide what survival looks like now. J. G. Ballard's second novel, published in the US as The Burning World.
Summary by Loreful, from public sources