James G. Ballard died today aged 78 after a long illnes (he was diagnosed of prostrate cancer in 2006.) He was famed for several short-stories and for his early SF books, radical masterpieces like The Atrocity Exhibition (1969), Crash (from which Cronenberg released his movie) and more recently Cocaine Nights ('96) or Kingdom Come (2006) and the acclaimed Empire of the Sun ('84), the story of a young English boy who lives in Shangai during the WWII (in part based upon the life of Ballard himself, it was also a successful Spielberg's movie.)
Ballard, a great 'fan' of Willian S. Burroughs, was considered an important forebear of the cyberpunk, a cold, lucid witness of our times and a radical investigator of the post-modern psychology(s).
He will be greatly missed!
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