ORBIT – Otherworldly Reads, Bold Ideas, and Tales. SF & F Short Stories and Novelettes discussion

I got The Complete Short Stories with an Audible credit. 98 stories, over 63 hours of listening. It'll be some time before I can start, and it will stretch over months, but it felt like a worthwhile use of a credit.

I read Chronopolis and Other Stories, a 1971 collection that includes many famous early stories, a couple of years ago. I also have a copy of Vermilion Sands on hand and plan to read it this year.

Stephen wrote: "I read Chronopolis and Other Stories, a 1971 collection that includes many famous early stories, a couple of years ago. I also have a copy of Vermilion Sands on hand a..."

Vermilion Sands! A true classic. Here's my near-5-star review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Enjoy! I'll be rereading it (again) down the road.

I just finished Vermilion Sands. A fairly rapid read. Nine stories originally published from 1956-1970, collected in 1971. They share a setting and have a number of other things in common. The setting is a near future desert resort community in some indeterminate location, with bright red sand sailed by wheeled sailing vessels. The characters are mainly male artists, practitioners of odd interesting hybrid future art forms, or art dealers. There is always a female goddess/movie star/muse/witch character. There is an emotional tone of obsession and self-indulgence, and somehow an isolated, alienated feel. One story (“Studio 5, The Stars”) is unexpectedly timely, involving machine-generated poetry and poets who have forgotten how to write.

The art forms are imaginative and fun to read about, I found some of the psychology interesting, and there is also quite a bit of humour.

Ballard of course was a major figure of the British New Wave who escaped the genre ghetto. I believe his work remains widely popular.

Quite entertaining and interesting stories. 4 stars.