Impossible not to view this as a collection of psychological documents - everything viewed through the lens of Empire of the Sun/Kindness of Women

Early indications of familiar obsessions: the nature of time, isolated and obscure characters locked in their own worlds, flight

First stories pre-figure the landscapes of the latest novels - Vermillion Sands is an early approximation of the heat drenched ennui of the South of France or the Med coast of Spain

Tone of the stories changes as the volume progresses - increasing darkness at the close of the '60s

Imagination that is unique - cinematic in scope, vivid technicolour prose, a style that is uniquely his

What is about time? Elastic, flexible, nothing happens. Tempting to relate this to childhood years in a POW camp - time becomes stretched until it's meaningless

Recognition of stories half-forgotten from previous anthologies and/or magazines. Still much that is new for many readers

Not to be read in one sitting

Some of the stories are exemplars of the craft of short story writing - confirmation of his skills as a writer