 While it was to be in part a book about cancer, and Ballard's struggle with it, it reportedly was to move on to broader themes.In April 2009 "The Guardian" reported that HarperCollins announced that Ballard's "Conversations with My Physician" could not be finished and plans to publish it were abandoned.In 2013, a 17-page untitled typescript listed as "Vermilion Sands short story in draft" in the British Library catalogue and edited into an 8,000-word text by Bernard Sigaud appeared in a short-lived French reissue of the collection () under the title "Le labyrinthe Hardoon" as the first story of the cycle, tentatively dated "late 1955/early 1956" by Sigaud and others.