This collection of mainstream stories, which have been published in such distinguished magazines as The New Yorker, Harper's, Omni, and Playboy, is a stunning example of the virtuosity of the legendary Ursula K. Le Guin. In her own words: "These stories span twelve years of writing, from the early eighties to the mid-nineties. It took them a long time to gather themselves into a whole, with the shape and the subtle interconnections that make a bunch of stories into a book.

"Recently I have published two collections of science-fiction stories. The stories in Unlocking the Air aren't science fiction; they belong variously to plain realism, or magical realism, or surrealism, or postmodern genres that don't even have names yet. They approach reality sometimes frontally, confrontationally, in daylight; sometimes deviously, by a back road in the dark; but they always approach it.

Some take place in realistic settings, such as the central European country of Orsinia or the town of Ether, OR. Others take place in highly fantastic settings, such as Oakland, Cleveland, or Portland. Several of them use a multiple voice, or a mythic voice, to talk about reality, because reality is a slippery fish that often can be caught only in a net of spells, or with the hook of metaphor. These stories are explorations of the mysteries of name and time and ordinary living and ordinary pain."