The Carpet Makers a novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Andreas Eschbach

Andreas Eschbach

Andreas Eschbach is a German writer who mostly writes science fiction. Even if some of his stories do not exactly fall into the SF genre, they usually feature elements of the fantastic.- Biography :...

published in 2005 by Tor Books

Tor Books

Tor Books is one of two imprints of Tom Doherty Associates LLC, based in New York City. It is noted for its science fiction and fantasy titles. Tom Doherty Associates also publishes mainstream fiction, mystery, and occasional military history titles under its Forge imprint. The company was founded...

, is an English translation of the German Die Haarteppichknüpfer (1995).

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 The Carpet Makers titled Quest (2001), which has not been translated into English so far.