slaador 's review for:

Die Haarteppichknüpfer by Andreas Eschbach

5.0

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A beautifully dark space epic of awesome proportions, told via short and very human stories. I particularly appreciated how unflinching it is in exploring its terrible premise, and how it builds and builds the grand enigma of the Hair Carpets - ever adding the detail, ever upping the stakes, right up until the reveal. And, I said before, it's very human: about halfway through the book, I realized with fascination that (a) I understood why Ostvan did what he did in the first chapter, and (b) I actually wanted to hear more about the hair carpets than about that immortal emperor for whom they're made. In a sense, I have become a hair carpet weaver: caring mostly about the hair carpets, and doing mostly the weaving together of their mystery.

What else? Oh yeah. This is a space epic, but, I think, not a Space Opera, which is refreshing: there's no hero's journey, and there are no plucky heroes upending the fate of the galaxy - only, perhaps, a poor sod here and there who gets caught in it.

There's maybe one complaint I'd like to make: compared to the rest of the story, the circumstances of the grand reveal feel a little flat (not the reveal itself - it's excellent!), and the characters feel a bit less convincing than those before them. But this is only in comparison to the rest of the novel. And hey - the matter-of-factness with which the reveal is explained may make a lot of sense, once you know that, at its core, the mystery of the Hair Carpets is

Spoiler

only a cruel, absurd cosmic joke

.