Always tempting to say the dehumanising influences of his childhood informed his writing but I think that's unfair to his own sensibility and idea of modern creative writing.

He had a very eventful life. Across very eventful times.

I think the short stories work better than most of the longform although "the wind from nowhere" and "empire of the sun are very good".

I also think it's useful to remember he wasn't writing in a vacuum, British SF was exploring all kinds of forms, Michael Moorcock wrote deconstructed novels where chapter readings before flow text carried a whole emotional plane not exposed in the plot (the condition of muzak) and Brian Aldiss expored SF literary criticism taking the genre seriously for almost the first time. He was a writer in a context of exploratory writing.