Gobeliniarze

What an intriguing premise - a whole planetary society working to make carpets ou of human hair, for an emperor's seemingly endless palace! Lost of questions, lost of things to understand, and lots of short stories coming together to form the overarching narrative of this strange planet in this strange empire.

There's a lot to take in, and a lot to unravel. I listened to the German-language audiobook, whose narrator did a good job at portraying the (many) characters that pop up in the history of this mysterious world. The story soon turns interplanetary, and very political, which I enjoyed.

However, there were also a lot of cringeworthy moments, and characters and plot points that were just too bizarre to believe, even in a world like this.
What disappointed me particularly was the ending. The whole book it remains a big mystery what on Earth happens to all those elaborate carpets made of hair. There is a solution to this mystery, towards the end of the book - and it didn't convince me. It was far-fetched and had little to do with what had happened in the plot up until that point. And the final chapter, that was supposed to bring it all together, I found to be extremely conventionally written, with an entirely unsurprising last paragraph.

Overall, a nice story with a lot of interesting things going on, made somewhat less interesting by an underwhelming ending. I'm glad I bought the audiobook at a discount.