The Carpet Makers
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''The Carpet Makers'' (German original title: ''Die Haarteppichknüpfer''), also published under the title ''The Hair Carpet Weavers'', is a
science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
novel by German writer
Andreas Eschbach Andreas Eschbach (born 15 September 1959, in Ulm) is a German writer, primarily of science fiction. His stories that are not clearly in the SF genre usually feature elements of the fantastic. Biography Eschbach studied aerospace engineering ...
, originally published in 1995. The first English language edition, released in 2005 by
Tor Books Tor Books is the primary imprint of Tor Publishing Group (previously Tom Doherty Associates), a publishing company based in New York City. It primarily publishes science fiction and fantasy titles, and is the largest publisher of Chinese scien ...
, features a foreword by
Orson Scott Card Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is the first and (as of 2022) only person to win both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for both ...
. The book is set on a planet whose sole industry is weaving elaborate rugs. The carpets are made of human hair and require a lifetime of work to complete. The book is a series of inter-related stories that give increasingly more detail on the nature and purpose of the rugs and why the universe has tens of thousands of planets solely devoted to making such a thing, each thinking they are the only one. There is a prequel to ''The Carpet Makers'' titled ''Quest'' (2001), which has not been translated into English so far.


Plot

The first chapter, originally a short story, uses the family of one carpet-maker to describe the generations-long tradition of hair carpet-making on an unnamed world and how it was based on religious devotion to a distant, and seemingly immortal, Emperor. The next several chapters describe more of the carpet-making culture from the viewpoints of a carpet buyer, a teacher with religious doubts, another carpet maker, a traveling peddler and a tax collector. Some of them are aware of rumours that the reign of the Emperor may be at an end after tens of thousands of years. As the story expands beyond one planet, we learn that a rebellion has in fact overthrown the central government and killed the Emperor and is bringing the news to the galactic region which includes the carpet-makers---a region that seems to have been removed from all official records. The rebel leader who killed the Emperor has a secret: the rebels' success and the Emperor's death were planned by the Emperor himself, grown weary of his long life. Meanwhile, a distant space station near a black hole continues to serve as a delivery point for all the hair carpets, which come from not only one world, but more than ten thousand. In an isolated bubble of space, removed from all the other stars of the galaxy, a lone planet is, over millennia, being paved flat. Only an ancient palace remains and, within it, a captive former king kept alive by artificial means is forced to watch the destruction of his world. The rebel leaders are astonished to learn that all the hair carpets have been sent through a hidden portal to this world and now cover most of its surface. Back at the Imperial Archives, the still-loyal Archivist finally tells the ancient story: the conquered king had teased the Emperor's predecessor about being unable to grow hair on his head, so in vengeance the old Emperor had decided to cover his enemy's entire planet with the hair of his former subjects, a plan which the next Emperor had allowed to continue for 100,000 years.


Reception

The original German novel won the 1996
Deutscher Science Fiction Preis Deutscher Science Fiction Preis is a German literary award. Together with the Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis, it is one of the most prestigious awards for German science fiction literature. The award was established in 1985 by the , a German Science Fiction ...
as well as the Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire for foreign-language novel in 2001. Writing in ''
Emerald City The Emerald City (sometimes called the City of Emeralds) is the capital city of the fictional Land of Oz in L. Frank Baum's Oz books, first described in ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' (1900). Fictional description Located in the center of the La ...
'',
Cheryl Morgan Cheryl Morgan is a British science fiction critic and publisher. She has won Hugo Awards for her work on the fanzine ''Emerald City'' from 1995 to 2006, and as non-fiction editor of ''Clarkesworld'' magazine from 2009 to 2011. Morgan was the f ...
called it "a fine example of traditional sociological science fiction, if rather unusually structured."Strange Because it is Foreign
by
Cheryl Morgan Cheryl Morgan is a British science fiction critic and publisher. She has won Hugo Awards for her work on the fanzine ''Emerald City'' from 1995 to 2006, and as non-fiction editor of ''Clarkesworld'' magazine from 2009 to 2011. Morgan was the f ...
; in ''
Emerald City The Emerald City (sometimes called the City of Emeralds) is the capital city of the fictional Land of Oz in L. Frank Baum's Oz books, first described in ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' (1900). Fictional description Located in the center of the La ...
'' #134; published November 2006; retrieved June 12, 2015


References

*"The Carpet Makers." ''Kirkus Reviews'' 73.3 (Feb. 2005): 155-155. *"The Carpet Makers." ''Publishers Weekly'' 252.10 (07 Mar. 2005): 54-54. *Green, Roland. "The Carpet Makers (Book)." Booklist 101.16 (15 Apr. 2005): 1442-1442. {{DEFAULTSORT:Carpet Makers, The 1995 German novels 1995 science fiction novels German science fiction novels Tor Books books