You are familiar with the salt of the earth. But did you
know there is an even finer, more delicate essence? Take
wisdom and imagination, responsibility and beauty, and mix
them together in arcane proportions to form a rich and
peculiar brine. The resulting water of life is an
emotional muddy liquid, filled with existential sediment
swirling in the light of secret reality and reflecting
prismatic colors of hope and wonder. If allowed to
evaporate- escape, flee, ascend into the ether and join
the music of the spheres-what remains is the quintessence;
a precious concentrate that is elusive and volatile,
neither fully solid nor so illusory as to be devoid of
pithy substance. It is the Salt of the Air. In this debut
collection from the critically acclaimed author of Dreams
of the Compass Rose and Lords of Rainbow, the sixteen
stories are distillations of myth and philosophy,
eroticism and ascetic purity. Dipping into an ancient
multi-ethnic well, they are the stuff of fantasy-of
maidens and deities and senior retirees, of kings and
artists and con artists, of warriors and librarians, of
beings without a name and things very fey indeed. . . .