Salamanders of the Silk Road
Salamanders of the Silk Road
by Christopher Smith
SALAMANDERS is a wild and surreal novel based on the ancient legend of Prester John. Snippets of Prester's past are interwoven with scenes from the present, in which he, his wife, and their sacred house salamanders vacation together on a lonely Florida island. He's down on his luck -- and looking for a way out of his endless existence.
The author shares: "Prester began as a sort of urban legend early in the 12th century. He was supposed to be a Christian king somewhere in Central Asia who had defeated the Muslim nations around him. The legend culminated in an insane 10-page letter sent in 1165 to the Byzantine emperor of Rome and the King of France, promising that Prester John would bring an army of monsters to reclaim Jerusalem from the Saracens. The only thing that held him back was the Tigris River. He reached its banks, but the river didn’t freeze solid, so he had to turn back. Prester John’s kingdom was supposed to include everything from gryphons, centaurs, and fire worms that produced fire-retardant silk, to magical mirrors and rivers that turned stones into gems. The amazing thing is that people believed it, and the search for Prester John’s mythical kingdom sparked expeditions for hundreds of years."
