Ballard previously used the theme of apocalyptic crystallisation in the 1964 short story "The Illuminated Man" (included in The Terminal Beach), which is also set in the same locations.

In his route towards the deep of the forest, Sanders gets involved in a personal feud between Ventress, a Belgian architect, and Thorensen, the director of a diamond mine.

In one of the most striking episodes of the novel, Sanders discovers the reason of the deadly rivalry to be Ventress' former wife, Serena, who is terminally ill with tuberculosis.

[1] The latter, nearly gone mad and sporting the first symptoms of leprosy, is portrayed towards the end of the novel as the leader of a band of lepers who set for the interior of the crystallizing forest, clearly to never come back.

Richard A. Lupoff described The Crystal World as the best of Ballard's "catastrophe novels", saying it was "Idiosyncratic but highly effective [and] a very important science fiction book.