After so many obituaries minimized or denied J. G. Ballard’s roots in SF, Moshe Feder was glad to hear from Michael Moorcock, the godfather of the New Wave, that he still unashamedly identifies himself with the field — and that there is video of the late Ballard doing the same:
Mike Moorcock was kind enough to bring this BBC program to my attention. The first 8 minutes of this episode are devoted to Ballard. An interview with his daughter Bea frames clips from David Cronenberg, Brian Aldiss and Ballard himself. He states unequivocally that he IS a science fiction writer and proud of it. (Take that, Robert Weil!) If you don’t have it, you’ll need to download Real Player to hear this.
Update 05/08/2009: Old dog tries new trick.
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That headline doesn’t make a lot of sense. The point is that J.G. Ballard “state[d] unequivocally that he IS a science fiction writer and proud of it.” What is Mike Moorcock supposed to be pleading guilty to?
The point is that Ballard, being dead, can’t easily set straight the record distorted by American sources like the NY Times and USA Today, and we’re fortunate to have a still-living Michael Moorcock to plead the case.
Mike, my own interpretation of your blog entry was also that you were stating that Mike Moorcock was “godfather of the New Wave,” and “still unashamedly identifies himself with the field.” Moorcock was the editor of New Worlds, which is your link, not Ballard. Your sentence doesn’t say what you think it says, or meant to say.
I opened the comments to point this out, only to see that David also understandably read you the same way.
Gary – Thanks for explaining the problem in terms I can understand. Yes, you are right about what I intended. And upon reflection, you are also right that the post as written isn’t saying what I meant.