From
Space Age Books LLC, Conroe, TX, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
AbeBooks Seller since June 11, 2018
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
A Baghdad merchant, who discovers an alchemical device that can send him back in time twenty years, tries to return to an earlier time to save his dead wife.
Reviews:
This curious time-travel novella from Hugo-winner Chiang (Stories of Your Life and Others) is a gracefully told lesson about accepting fate—or, as better suits this medieval Arabian setting, the will of Allah. A Baghdad merchant discovers an alchemical device that can send a traveler back in time 20 years. Despite the alchemist's warning that "what is made cannot be unmade," and three illustrative tales about others' attempts to alter the past, the merchant is determined to return to an earlier time to save his long-dead wife. Half lyrical Arabian Nights legend and half old school cautionary SF tale, this skillfully written story and its theme of insurmountable fate may comfort as many readers as it makes uncomfortable. (July)
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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
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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
Seller: Goodwill of Greater Milwaukee and Chicago, Racine, WI, U.S.A.
Condition: good. Book is considered to be in good or better condition. The actual cover image may not match the stock photo. Hard cover books may show signs of wear on the spine, cover or dust jacket. Paperback book may show signs of wear on spine or cover as well as having a slight bend, curve or creasing to it. Book should have minimal to no writing inside and no highlighting. Pages should be free of tears or creasing. Stickers should not be present on cover or elsewhere, and any CD or DVD expected with the book is included. Book is not a former library copy. Seller Inventory # SEWV.1596061006.G
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Lost Books, AUSTIN, TX, U.S.A.
Hard cover. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 60 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. Fair in fair dust jacket. Ex-library. Library stamps and labels. Small stain on top corner of first few pages. Seller Inventory # Alibris.0014430
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Preferred Books, Rancho Cucamonga, CA, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Fine condition. Ex-library with no markings or flaws except for two stamps on the copyright page as pictured. A very fine copy. Book looks unread. First edition, first printing. Seller Inventory # 013939
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Preferred Books, Rancho Cucamonga, CA, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Fine in fine dust jacket. Stated first edition. Square tight binding, clean white pages. Does not appear to have been read. No flaws. Seller Inventory # 013681
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Kathmandu Books, Winter Park, FL, U.S.A.
1st edition. HC in dust jacket. 1st Printing. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Seller Inventory # 39025
Quantity: 1 available