New additions to The Beast aka my pile of books

I have three new SciFi books to add to The Beast which is what I call my ever-growing pile of books. I'm pretty excited about these books. I found a list of European science fiction authors on Goodreads and decided to check a few of them out.

Title: The Carpet Makers

Author: Andeas Eschbach

Publisher: Tor Books, 2006 (originally published in 1995)

Pages: 300

Goodreads Summary

Since the time of pre-history, carpetmakers tie intricate knots to form carpets for the court of the Emperor. These carpets are made from the hairs of wives and daughters; they are so detailed and fragile that each carpetmaker finishes only one single carpet in his entire lifetime.

This art descends from father to son, since the beginning of time itself.

But one day the empire of the God Emperor vanishes, and strangers begin to arrive from the stars to follow the trace of the hair carpets. What these strangers discover is beyond all belief, more than anything they could have ever imagined...

Brought to the attention of Tor Books by Orson Scott Card, this edition of The Carpet Makers contains a special introduction by Orson Scott Card.

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Title: We
Author: Yevgeny Zamyatin
Published: 1993 by Penguin Classics (originally published in 1921)
Pages: 226

Goodreads Summary

In the One State of the great Benefactor, there are no individuals, only numbers. Life is an ongoing process of mathematical precision, a perfectly balanced equation. Primitive passions and instincts have been subdued. Even nature has been defeated, banished behind the Green Wall. But one frontier remains: outer space. Now, with the creation of the spaceship Integral, that frontier -- and whatever alien species are to be found there -- will be subjugated to the beneficent yoke of reason.

One number, D-503, chief architect of the Integral, decides to record his thoughts in the final days before the launch for the benefit of less advanced societies. But a chance meeting with the beautiful 1-330 results in an unexpected discovery that threatens everything D-503 believes about himself and the One State. The discovery -- or rediscovery -- of inner space...and that disease the ancients called the soul.

A page-turning SF adventure, a masterpiece of wit and black humor that accurately predicted the horrors of Stalinism, We is the classic dystopian novel. Its message of hope and warning is as timely at the end of the twentieth century as it was at the beginning.

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Title: Fantastic Planet
Author: Stephan Wul
Published: Creation Oneiros, 2010(first published in 1957)
Pages: 160

 Amazon Summary

Now published for the very first time in English, Stephan Wul's Fantastic Planet (Oms En Série) is a classic of Science Fiction and the inspiration for the award-winning 1973 animated film La Planète Sauvage (Fantastic Planet). The last surviving humans are taken from Earth to the wild planet Ygam by the traags, a race of blue-skinned, red-eyed giants. Here they become known as oms, used as lowly servants and regarded as savages. But little by little, led by a young man of superior intelligence named Terr, the oms regain their thirst for liberty and rise up against the draags to affirm their humanity in the face of oppression. This deceptively simple story-line is vividly depicted by author Wul with fantastic detail and a stirring mythopoeic resonance. The film Fantastic Planet won the Grand Prix at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival and remains a mind-bendingly entertaining touchstone of counterculture art; at last, English-language readers can enjoy the classic Sci-Fi novel that it was based on.

Can't ever have too many science fiction books.

My review for Horns by Joe Hill will be posted tomorrow!