The late J.G. Ballard, author of 19 novels and countless short stories, is one of the few contemporary writers to have earned his own adjective. “Ballardian,’’ according to the Collins English Dictionary, describes the sort of “dystopian modernity’’ and “bleak man-made landscapes’’ in which the British writer specialized.

“Millennium People,’’ originally published in 2003 and now being released here, will not disappoint. The novel is relentlessly, at times oppressively, Ballardian.

Our protagonist David Markham, a psychologist specializing in “the mental problems of middle managers’’ is jolted from his comfortable existence by an airport bombing that kills his ex-wife. In an effort to track down the killers, Markham infiltrates a group of self-styled revolutionaries operating out of Chelsea Marina, a posh London enclave.

The rebels, led by a charismatic and mentally unstable pediatrician, hope to incite the mortgage class to revolt against their self-imposed civic obedience through a series of increasingly outlandish terrorist actions. Before long, Markham has left his second wife, moved into Chelsea Marina, and thrown himself headlong into the movement.

Ballard’s preferred terrain, as a science fiction writer, was the post-apocalyptic dystopia. This time out, there’s no need for a cataclysm. His vision of modern consumer culture could hardly be bleaker. He paints a world so devoid of feeling that average citizens torch their homes simply to feel alive. This is the sort of book in which characters say things such as, “‘Happiness? I like the idea, but it doesn’t seem worth the effort.’’’

Ballard is at his best when his characters resist this sort of easy cynicism. Here, for instance, is how Markham reacts as he’s leaving his ex-wife’s memorial service: “Wisps of smoke rose from the crematorium chimney while the combustion chamber warmed to its fiercest temperature. There was a puff of darker smoke, as if part of Laura had freed itself from the drag-anchor of her body - perhaps a hand that had once caressed me, or the soft foot that would touch mine while she slept.’’

Sadly, the lyric beauty of this passage, the depth of emotion it conveys, is absent from the rest of “Millennium People.’’ What we get instead is a police procedural spiked with bouts of dogma. Ballard’s characters don’t interact. They swap cultural diagnoses. It’s like listening to a gang of hyperarticulate college sophomores.

“ ‘There’s a deep need for meaningless action,’ ’’ the rebel leader assures Markham, “ ‘the more violent the better. People know their lives are pointless, and they realize there’s nothing they can do about it. Or almost nothing.’ ’’