The Carpet Makers - Andreas Eschbach's luminous novel unravels the mystery of a society organized around the production of impossibly ornate carpets made from human hair. Each one takes an entire lifetime to produce, and the people adhere to this lifestyle with a religious zeal. The story telescopes into a Vinge-esque space opera, made all the more powerful by Doryl Jensen's limpid translation from the original German:

"For you there is only one way to live. You have learned from me everything a hair-carpet maker must know; that is enough. You can tie all the knots, you have been intructed in impregnation and dying techniques, and you know the traditional patterns. When you have designed your carpet, you will take a wife and have many daughters with different colored hair. And for your wedding, I will cut the carpet from the frame, bind it, and you will sell it in the city to the Imperial Trader. That is what I did with the carpet of my father, and he did the same before me with the carpet of his father, and he with the carpet of his father, my great grandfather; that is the way it has been from generation to generation for thousands of years [...] It was always this way and it will always be so."

The mystery deepens as Imperial Traders come less frequently and buy fewer carpets, those carpets wait longer and longer to be taken off-world, and strangers with strange news begin to appear. I've never read anything quite like it... Eschbach's detached, clear prose renders a universe that seems more familiar even as it becomes more disturbing.