From the introduction ("the tale"):
Worlds come in many forms. Somewhere, there is a world that is a tapestry; ideas are woven into Words which make the threads. It used to be that one Weaver oversaw the process: Anansi, Arachne, Spider. Even with eight arms, she grew tired of spinning day and night, and so wove children out of silk to live in the threads and work them. The people in that world are those children: in naming things, those little silkworms spin the tapestry simply by living within it.
At first, this proved satisfactory, and Anansi was able to sleep. But now the tapestry sags and snarls. Coyote, jealous of Spider’s work (for He cannot operate a loom at all) has tricked the other us into making too many Words, not under-standing – or not caring – that the failure of the tapestry dooms god and human alike. There, too, are more of us silk- worms crawling the fabric than it can bear, billions of names more, tangling the pattern. The groan of the chaotic warp and weft has caught Spider’s attention, and the Weaver cries out in anger, threatening to smash Her loom.
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