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JG Ballard: Psychonaut of Inner Space
Author: Simon Sellars • Jul 7th, 2006 •Category: Ballardosphere, Iain Sinclair, Michael Moorcock, New Worlds, science fiction
These days, with all manner of theorists, futurists, architects, musos, journos, self-mutilators and even UFO freaks claiming JG Ballard as one of their very own, it’s easy to forget that the man with his finger firmly impressed on the cult of today once wrote what was considered to be actual science fiction, albeit of a rather radical kind: explorations into inner space rather than outer, and five minutes into the future rather than 500 hundred years.
A timely reminder, then, from Mike B. over at the JG Ballard Mailing List, of what some consider to be Ballard’s glory years. Mike writes: “Francis Spufford has produced some interesting stuff in the third part of his BBC Radio 4 history of British Science Fiction — Albion Unbound. The prog has a few tried and tested JGB quotes and a reading from High Rise. It very much takes the New Worlds view of 60s SF. Contributions from Ballard, Aldiss, Moorcock, Brian Stableford, Colin Greenland, Iain Sinclair and China Mieville.”
Listen to it here.
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Simon Sellars
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WHo in this daY & age still thinks science fiction is about space and/or the future?
umm, arnold schwarzenegger? sly stallone? john carpenter? brian de palma? bart simpson? certainly not jgb — and certainly not in the 1960s, when writing about ‘inner space’ really was radical.