THIS IS THE WORLD of makers: potters, woodcarvers, glassblowers; the world of prisoners, masters and apprentices; of animals that dream of their creation and extinction. This is also a slim, powerful book. In 13 stories, Sean Virgo`s poetic prose presents a world in which time - as it exists - exists very much in the minds of the inhabitants who call this strange place home. It is not Milton`s Paradise Lost, although Lucifer`s angelic/human striving, and banishment from glory, is very much evident in the recurring character of the apprentice, one of the most important threads in the fabric of the book. For it is a book about fabric, about making the world. Texture is everywhere: in "The Brush Wolf," the wolf sees the woods as "a rippling fabric"; in "The Falcon," the apprentice conjures the landscape: "that part of the Fabric - multiform, manifold which was their province." Birds are being created that will "knit the sky`s fabric together." How is it we are let in on creation? How can this be Eden, with all these prisoners? The book abounds with them: from the first story, "The Prisoner," to the silent prison of "The Mute," to "The Golden Crane` imprisoned in an environmentally controlled zoo, to "The Merchant," Prisoner of his grief and guilt. Prisoners take part in the creation/recreation of the world, while humanity parades by ("The Mute`) and the fog closes in, then moves off, and things disappear and become clear again. This is time, then, centuries or hours: "Time comes and goes, or it stays. It scarcely matters" ("The Prisoner"). One is the prisoner of grief, or talent, lives among the people of ones random time and then dies, feeling a lack of power. Hardly Eden. Except for the lack of true power. And the angels. And the perpetual apprentice. For if time repeats, or does not - as continuum -exist, then there is always the apprentice creating the first pot, the first bird, and he is always dreaming that he is almost as good as the master, and wishing: "...that his potential be realized. That he be given power... Dreaming was his only exercise in freedom, and without freedom how could there be creation?" ("The Falcon" ). Yet his perfect bird can be carelessly destroyed. He can fail at creation. Aspiration, then, is what lasts. Literally. The glassblower breathes into the tube and forms a glass sphere, which survives and "the air inside it ... was the breath of a man..." ("The Glass Sphere`). So, if "the Glory finds you" ("The Teacher") perhaps the perfect jar can be achieved. However, empowerment comes not in perfection, but in aspiration