 Ballard's disturbing novel was turned into a controversial—and likewise disturbing—cerebral film by David Cronenberg.Particularly revered among Ballard's admirers is his short story collection "Vermilion Sands" (1971), set in an eponymous desert resort town inhabited by forgotten starlets, insane heirs, very eccentric artists, and the merchants and bizarre servants who provide for them.Each story features peculiarly exotic technology such as cloud-carving sculptors performing for a party of eccentric onlookers, poetry-composing computers, orchids with operatic voices and egos to match, phototropic self-painting canvases, etc.