The Carpet Makers

Did You Know?

• A prequel titled Quest (2001) has not been translated into English.
• Cheryl Morgan, writing in Emerald City, called it 'a fine example of traditional sociological science fiction, if rather unusually structured.'

Plot

The opening chapter, originally a standalone short story, follows a carpet-making family on an unnamed world, where the generations-long tradition of weaving hair carpets is rooted in religious devotion to a distant, seemingly immortal Emperor. Subsequent chapters shift perspectives to a carpet buyer, a teacher with religious doubts, another carpet maker, a traveling peddler, and a tax collector; some characters hear rumors that the Emperor's reign may be ending after tens of thousands of years. As the narrative expands beyond a single planet, a rebellion has overthrown the central government and killed the Emperor, and rebels bring this news to a galactic region that includes the carpet-makers—a region apparently erased from official records. The rebel leader who killed the Emperor harbors a secret: the Emperor himself, weary of his long life, planned his own death and the rebels' success. Meanwhile, a distant space station near a black hole continues to receive hair carpets from over ten thousand worlds. In an isolated bubble of space, a lone planet is being paved flat over millennia, with only an ancient palace remaining; inside, a captive former king, kept alive artificially, is forced to watch his world's destruction. Rebel leaders discover that all the hair carpets have been sent through a hidden portal to this planet, now covering most of its surface. At the Imperial Archives, the still-loyal Archivist finally recounts the ancient story: the conquered king had mocked the previous Emperor's baldness, so that Emperor vowed to cover the enemy's entire planet with the hair of his subjects, a plan the next Emperor allowed to continue for 100,000 years.