even better the second (or possibly the third) time around.the novel is a series of interlinked short stories, more or less. this time around reading it i had the feeling it was a tapestry, altho possibly not made of women's hair.that's what the carpet makers make: carpets out of women's hair. their wives' and subwives' hair. fear not, no women are harmed in the making of this carpet. well, not just for their hair, anyway.the carpet makers work their art as honored members of their society. a carpet maker makes only one carpet in his (yes, always his) entire life. its selling price pays for his son's lifework: making another hair carpet. generation after generation, making hair carpets, and where do they all go?to the Emperor, who reportedly adorns his palace with them.but 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. but no spoilers here!eschbach is a genius. 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. eschbach tells you this history in a mere 18 chapters. 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. we are simply reading one person's story, and then another, and another, and each is a perfectly formed and perfectly distinct gem.as a writer, i stand in awe (the real kind) of what he has accomplished here. as a reader, i am alternately deeply moved, or amused, or horrified, or fall into the deepest of sighs that says, yes, that's how life is (even when it's not pretty, but also when it is). i cannot recommend this book highly enough. i read at least 100 books a year, and in 45 years of reading like a mad librarian, i can count on my limited digits the number that i find to be of this caliber. this book is a serious literary and storytelling accomplishment, and i hope that this review convinces you to give it a try.perhaps we can then all get together and convince Tor to have more of Eschbach's works translated. to date this is the only one i know of in English. we are impoverished by this lack... Tor, are you listening?
I'm having such a hard time rating this book. Andreas Eschbach has created an amazing world to explore in The Carpet Makers. Unfortunately, he fails to really explore it. It reads like a bunch of short stories set in the same world, sometimes connected, and other times I can't really figure out what the point of a certain thread is. There really is no character development. Not enough time is spent on any character or setting to really get the full story, before we've moved on to other characters, sometimes never to return. On the other hand, the world was fascinating. I kept reading because I wanted to know how it all tied together, and at the end it did come together somewhat, but for me it was underwhelming, and I was ultimately disappointed. This writer is good, for sure, but I feel like there could have been so much more story told, so many more things to develop and explore, and it just never got there. I would read more by this author, but I'm not sure if any other of his books are translated into English. This one was not heavy at all on the science, and could be enjoyed by fans of any genre.
What do You think about The Carpet Makers (2006)?
4,5/5 Si para ti la The Cyberiad y demás fábulas de robots de Stanislaw Lem son ciencia ficción, pues esto también lo será. Pero para mí las fábulas como estas, a pesar de incluir elementos propios de la cifi como los agujeros negros (y no entro en más detalles, que cualquier cosa que adelante sería spoiler), son pura fantasía: los elementos cifi solo sirven para hacer más enorme/magna/dantesca la historia. Si me la leo en clave de cifi, no me la creo y eso no puede ser, así que prefiero leerla en clave fantástica. Moraleja: no te metas con alguien como yo, que somos muy sensibles en relación a según qué cosas y se nos lleva la ira. :PEn cualquier caso, y discusiones chorras aparte sobre etiquetas, gran lectura. Me ha sorprendido que el traductor, José María Faraldo, sea el mismo que el de Sapkowski, Andrzej; se ve que es un crack.
—Jordi Balcells
4.5/5.echaba de menos leer uno de mis géneros favoritos, sino el favorito, cf, el que siempre me ha acompañado en mi vida como amante de los libros, pero dudaba por cual decidirme, y aunque confieso que tenía dudas sobre este, me alegro de haberme decidido por él. me encantó. en principio no parece el típico libro de cf al uso, ese planeta dominado por una fe enfermiza, ignorante del resto, sin querer ver más allá, pero luego te adentra en un mundo más extenso, en traiciones,mentiras, absolutismos, ansias de poder. y ahora qué? sigo con el género.
—Badb
This was wild from start to end. At first it's a little boring to read because you don't know what's going on at all, nothing makes absolutely any sense. But then it kinda does. At some point, I can't exactly tell when, it starts sucking you in, the story becomes more and more intricate and you're given some answers but at the same time there are still so many questions left unanswered that you feel the need to keep reading to know more, and at the end, you still have tons of questions and everything hurts. You're left empty. The story behind the carpets is so unexpected, childish, heartbreaking and GENIUS that I had to literally sit there for a couple minutes with the book still in my hands just staring at the pages. I loved this book, and I'd give it five stars, but I didn't quite like the writing style so I'm giving it four out of five. WOULD TOTALLY RECOMMEND.
—Bianca
