Breathmoss and Other Exhalations

This collection of literary short fiction combines fantasy, science fiction, and horror in vivid settings, peopled with ordinary humans with normal relationships, and the interaction of the mundane with the fantastic. In "Breathmoss," a young girl must cope with the relationship with her family, love, and a community set in rigid custom, where males are a rarity. In "Verglas," a man must decide to leave his humanity by going native on an ice world or abandon his family. The events leading to the formation of the current government, the repression of Jews and homosexuals, and the horrors of being a closet homosexual in such a regime are examined in "The Summer Isles." Other stories encompass a scientist who searches for extraterrestrial intelligence; a rigid, aged man finding magic by a pool; and an 18-year-old girl who gains the reputation of being a death flower during WWII.

Ian R. MacLeod was born on 6 August 1956 in Solihull, in the West Midlands of the United Kingdom, and has spent most of his life there. He took a Law degree, mainly because he liked all the leather-bound books of law reports, drifted into a job in the English Civil Service, and worked there until his thirties, whilst always planning and hoping to be a writer. MacLeod's work has been nominated for the Nebula and Hugo awards, and has won the World Fantasy Award, Locus Award, Sidewise Award, and Asimov's Reader's Poll, and been widely anthologized and translated