The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate [SIGNED]

Ted Chiang

ISBN 10: 1596061006 / ISBN 13: 9781596061002

Published by Subterranean Press, Burton MI, 2007

SIGNED and inscribed on its title page by author Ted Chiang in 2007, "Hey Mark, Thanks for buying this chapbook!" On its copyright page is"FIRST EDITION". This book is in fine condition. Its binding is tight and square, with no spine crease. Covers are unmarked and unworn. Pages are unworn and unmarked (other than the author's inscription.) Its dust jacket, now protected by a removable mylar cover, is also in fine condition: whole, bright, unworn, and unmarked. I will ship this book in a moisture proof zip-loc bag, padded in bubble wrap, inside a sturdy box to assure it reaches its proud new owner in the same condition as my description. Seller Inventory # 002550

Synopsis:

In medieval Baghdad, a penniless man is brought before the most powerful man in the world, the caliph himself, to tell his story. It begins with a walk in the bazaar, but soon grows into a tale unlike any other told in the caliph's empire. It's a story that includes not just buried treasure and a band of thieves, but also men haunted by their past and others trapped by their future; it includes not just a beloved wife and a veiled seductress, but also long journeys taken by caravan and even longer ones taken with a single step. Above all, it's a story about recognizing the will of Allah and accepting it, no matter what form it takes.

From Booklist: In the manner of the Arabian Nights, Chiang wraps stories within a story, and all of them interrelate to argue that "the past and the future are the same." Not that past and future are identical, but that they stay the same and cannot be altered, even if one could journey back to the former or forward to the latter to change it. In medieval Baghdad, a merchant obtains an audience with the caliph to apprise him of a merchant-alchemist who has created doors between past and future. He relays the tales the door maker told him about a rope maker and a weaver who each ventured through a 20-year-spanning door more than once, and then the tale of the well-to-do man's wife who did the same—all before he imparts his own time-hopping adventure. Eventually, interconnections between the four stories surface, and they boggle the mind, more so, perhaps, than any of the tales of similar effect in Chiang's dazzling Stories of Your Life and Others (2002). Could fantasy be more intelligently exquisite and, ultimately and surprisingly, morally sound than this? Olson, Ray
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Bibliographic Details

Title: The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate [...
Publisher: Subterranean Press, Burton MI
Publication Date: 2007
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
Signed: Signed by Author(s)
Edition: 1st Edition