the genius of it is that each chapter is just one more story of a very human individual-he weaves the history so tightly into the individual's story that the reader never feels she is being info-dumped or given a lesson at all. eschbach tells you this history in a mere 18 chapters. this novel begins with the story of one otherwise utterly ignorant carpet maker, and in succeeding stories, tells you the history of an intergalactic empire that spans 250,000 years. To the Emperor, who reportedly adorns his palace with them.īut all is not quite as the carpet makers have been led to believe, and the truth about where the carpets go and why is unbelievably appalling.Įschbach is a genius. generation after generation, making hair carpets, and where do they all go? its selling price pays for his son's lifework: making another hair carpet. a carpet maker makes only one carpet in his (yes, always his) entire life. The carpet makers work their art as honored members of their society. fear not, no women are harmed in the making of this carpet. That's what the carpet makers make: carpets out of women's hair. this time around reading it i had the feeling it was a tapestry, altho possibly not made of women's hair. The novel is a series of interlinked short stories, more or less.

As of 2006, his only novel translated into English was Die Haarteppichknüpfer, published in 2005 as The Carpet Makers.Įven better the second (or possibly the third) time around.

In 2003, his novel Eine Billion Dollar was adapted for German radio. In 2002, his novel Das Jesus Video was adapted for German television. His novels have also been translated into a number of languages, including English, French, Italian, Russian, Polish, Turkish and Japanese. Five of his novels have won the Kurd-Laßwitz-Award, one of the most prestigious awards in the German SF scene. His first professional publication was the short story Dolls, published in 1991 in German computing magazine C't. He has been writing since he was 12 years old. Even if some of his stories do not exactly fall into the SF genre, they usually feature elements of the fantastic.Įschbach studied aerospace engineering at the University of Stuttgart and later worked as a software engineer. Andreas Eschbach is a German writer who mostly writes science fiction.

The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach