The Hair Carpet Weavers by Andreas Eshbach

The Hair Carpet Weavers by Andreas Eschbach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An unusual SF yarn, where the author addresses issues like religion – the opiate of the masses, immortality –the futility of a Methuselan existence, existentialism, genocide and vengeance. On one level it is allegorical account of Nazi war crimes – the horror experienced by the Allies on the ‘liberation’ of the concentration camps. It is also a gripping story – starting slow, meandering along on a backward planet and, with the introduction of more characters, then bounding all over the galaxy.
At first glance the carpet weaving culture appears to be a social welfare program along the lines of MGNREGA

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is an Indian job guarantee scheme, enacted by legislation on August 25, 2005. The scheme aims at enhancing the livelihood security of people in rural areas by guaranteeing hundred days of wage-employment in a financial year to a rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.

However, the denouement reveals the sinister, albeit petty, truth behind this pan-galactic enterprise.

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