His clearly acknowledged models in the French avant-garde and the gnomic brevity of much of his work limited his appeal in the science fiction world, though he received some critical acclaim for A Few Last Words (collection, 1970).
In 2000, he appeared as himself in the UK Channel 4 project Asylum (2000)—a mix of both documentary and fiction, where in the future a group of people are looking back at the twentieth century after a virus has wiped out most of the culture—written and directed by Christopher Petit and Iain Sinclair.
[2] In Literary Hub, Lisa Levy considered his output significant and diverse and ranked him as perhaps alongside Don DeLillo (b.
[3] On noir Sallis argues it is an oppositional form, working not to reinforce American culture but to subvert it: "there is no moral order save which a man creates from himself.
In 2011, Sallis's novel Drive was adapted by director Nicolas Winding Refn into a film of the same name, starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan.