The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate
Encyclopedia
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate is a fantasy
novelette
by Ted Chiang
originally published in 2007 by Subterranean Press
and reprinted in the September 2007 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction. It won the 2008 Hugo Award for Best Novelette
and the 2008 Nebula Award for Best Novelette
.
. It begins when he is searching for a gift to give a business associate and happens to discover a new shop in the marketplace. The shop owner, who makes and sells a variety of very interesting items, invites Fuwaad into the back workshop to see a mysterious black stone arch which serves as a gateway into the future, which the shop owner has made by the use of alchemy
. Fuwaad is intrigued, and the shop owner tells him three stories of others who have traveled
through the gate to meet and have conversation with their future selves. When Fuwaad learns that the shop keeper has another gate in Cairo
that will allow people to travel even into the past, he makes the journey there to try to rectify a mistake he made twenty years earlier.
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
novelette
Novelette
A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...
by Ted Chiang
Ted Chiang
Ted Chiang is an American speculative fiction writer. His Chinese name is Chiang Feng-nan.He was born in Port Jefferson, New York and graduated from Brown University with a Computer Science degree. He currently works as a technical writer in the software industry and resides in Bellevue, near...
originally published in 2007 by Subterranean Press
Subterranean Press
Subterranean Press is a small press publisher in Michigan. Subterranean is best known for publishing genre fiction, primarily horror, suspense and dark mystery, fantasy, and science fiction...
and reprinted in the September 2007 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction. It won the 2008 Hugo Award for Best Novelette
Hugo Award for Best Novelette
The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
and the 2008 Nebula Award for Best Novelette
Nebula Award for Best Novelette
Winners of the Nebula Award for best Novelette. The stated year is that of publication; awards are given in the following year. Winning titles are listed first, with other nominees listed below.-External links:* * *...
.
Plot summary
The story follows Fuwaad ibn Abbas, a fabric merchant in the ancient city of BaghdadBaghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
. It begins when he is searching for a gift to give a business associate and happens to discover a new shop in the marketplace. The shop owner, who makes and sells a variety of very interesting items, invites Fuwaad into the back workshop to see a mysterious black stone arch which serves as a gateway into the future, which the shop owner has made by the use of alchemy
Alchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
. Fuwaad is intrigued, and the shop owner tells him three stories of others who have traveled
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
through the gate to meet and have conversation with their future selves. When Fuwaad learns that the shop keeper has another gate in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
that will allow people to travel even into the past, he makes the journey there to try to rectify a mistake he made twenty years earlier.
External links
- "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate", full story read by JJ Campanella on the StarShipSofa podcast (23 March 2008).
- The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chiang, a short review of the story at BestScienceFictionStories.com (22 March 2008).