More than any other, it was Ballard who showed me that SF could be more than just genre fiction. That his death happened without being screamed from the rooftops is a shame for both fans of SF and literature.
The author JG Ballard, famed for novels such as Crash and Empire of the Sun, has died aged 78 after a long illness.
His agent Margaret Hanbury said the author had been ill 'for several years' and had died on Sunday morning.
Despite being referred to as a science fiction writer, Jim Ballard said his books were instead 'picturing the psychology of the future'.
His most acclaimed novel was Empire of the Sun, based on his childhood in a Japanese prison camp in China.
