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Venus Smiles (and Other Vermillion Sands Stories)
Series: Brief Encounters
Brief Description
Embark on a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with J.G. Ballard, sci-fi's psychedelic pioneer, and this short collection of his most mesmerising and mind-blowing stories from his invented desert dystopia: Vermillion Sands. Welcome to Vermilion Sands, the fully automated desert-resort ready to fulfil your most exotic whims. Out over...
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Format: Paperback / softback
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October 2026
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Venus Smiles (and Other Vermillion Sands Stories)
$2400
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Description
Embark on a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with J.G. Ballard, sci-fi's psychedelic pioneer, and this short collection of his most mesmerising and mind-blowing stories from his invented desert dystopia: Vermillion Sands.
Welcome to Vermilion Sands, the fully automated desert-resort ready to fulfil your most exotic whims.
Out over the towering Coral D, sky artists paint the sky with clouds. A musical statue is broken down, but finds new life in unwanted places. A mysterious new resident introduces a new way of making poetry - aided by machine. Drawing together some of the most mesmerising and mind-blowing stories from J.G. Ballard's Vermillion Sands art-infused universe, this short collection is a passport into the genius of science fiction's most visionary pioneer.
Includes the stories: Cry Hope, Cry Fury!, The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral-D, Venus Smiles and Studio 5, The Stars.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days.
Series: Brief Encounters
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Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781529986068
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 02 July 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Vintage Classics
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 12.0mm
Width: 131.0mm
Height: 197.0mm
Weight: 110g
Pages: 144
About the Author
J. G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai, China. After the attack on Pearl Harbour the family was interned in a civilian camp. They returned to England in 1946. In 1956 Ballard's first story was published in New Worlds. His first novel, The Drowned World, was published in 1962. Empire of the Sun, a novel based on his own experience in China, was published in 1984 and won the Guardian Fiction Prize, the James Tait Black Award and was filmed by Steven Spielberg. He is the author of many collections of short stories and novels, including Cocaine Nights and Super-Cannes.
Also by J G Ballard
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High-Rise
From the author of the Sunday Times bestseller Cocaine Nights comes an acclaimed backlist titleβan unnerving tale of life in a modern tower block running out of controlβnow reissued in a new cover style. Within the concealing walls of an elegant forty-storey tower block, the affluent tenants are hell-bent on an orgy of destruction. Cocktail parties degenerate into marauding attacks...Paperback$2699Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
The Drowned World
This fast-paced narrative by the author of Crash and Empire of the Sun is a stunning evocation of a flooded, tropical London of the near future and a foray into the workings of the unconscious mind. Set in the future, Ballard imagines a world in which global warming has melted the ice-caps and primordial jungles and swamps have returned to...Paperback$2500Elsewhere:$2699Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Crash
The definitive cult, post-modern novel β a shocking blend of violence, transgression and eroticism β reissued with an introduction from Zadie Smith. After being bombarded endlessly by road-safety propaganda it was almost a relief to find myself in an actual accident. When James Ballard smashes his car into another, he becomes fascinated with the allure of violence. His new friend...Paperback$2699Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Empire of the Sun
From the master of dystopia comes his heartrending story of a British boyβs four-year ordeal in a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War. Based on J. G. Ballardβs own childhood, this is the extraordinary account of a boyβs life in Japanese-occupied wartime Shanghai β a mesmerising, hypnotically compelling novel of war, starvation, and survival, of internment camps and...PaperbackSold Out
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