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Ballard was the first SF writer to realize that there was something basically lunatic about space travel. Ballard never predicted events or devices; instead, he described future sensibilities--how it might feel, what it might mean. A bizarre contemporary event like the paparazzi car-crash death of Princess Diana is perfectly Ballardian. No flow chart, no equation, no profit projection could ever have predicted that, but if you've read Ballard, you swiftly recognize the smell of it. I daresay that's the best the SF genre will ever do--and no more should ever be asked of it.
Science-fiction writer Bruce Sterling has published 12 books. His seventh novel, Distraction, was released in December