via ballardtribute

Via BBC—author J.G. Ballard has died after what is being reported as a “long illness.” Ballard was one of our favorite authors here at L.A. RECORD headquarters and we are very sad to wake up this Sunday morning and find him gone. In his honor we suggest re-reading “The Watchtowers” or “Build-Up” and listening to Pere Ubu. An artful obit from the BBC:

JG Ballard’s novels, disquieting, visionary and often apocalyptic fables of technological and social anarchy set him at the very pinnacle of contemporary writing.

The self-professed “architect of dreams, sometimes nightmares” enjoyed a cult status, and Steven Spielberg’s film of his book Empire of the Sun brought him a a popular fanbase, too.

Fusing external landscapes of futuristic visions with the internal workings of his characters’ minds, Ballard created a series of montages in which the world was, in turns, flooded, desiccated, crystallised and concreted over.

He was, some said, the seer of the post-Hiroshima age.