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The Years of Rice and Salt

3.69 of 5 stars 3.69 · rating details · 3,835 ratings · 479 reviews

With the incomparable vision and breathtaking detail that brought his now-classic Mars trilogy to vivid life, bestselling author KIM STANLEY ROBINSON boldly imagines an alternate history of the last seven hundred years. In his grandest work yet, the acclaimed storyteller constructs a world vastly different from the one we know....

The Years of Rice and Salt

It is the fourtee...more

Paperback, 763 pages

Published June 3rd 2003 by Spectra (first published 2002)

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The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

Best Alternate History Novels and Stories

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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Best Alternate History

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May 04, 2013 Clouds - (¿head-in-the?) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction-stand-alone, locus-sci-fi, science-fiction, 5-star, reviewed

Christmas 2010: I realised that I had got stuck in a rut. I was re-reading old favourites again and again, waiting for a few trusted authors to release new works. Something had to be done.

On the spur of the moment I set myself a challenge, to read every book to have won the Locus Sci-Fi award. That’s 35 books, 6 of which I’d previously read, leaving 29 titles by 14 authors who were new to me.

While working through this reading list I got married, went on my honeymoon, switched career and became...more

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Jul 11, 2009 Ceridwen rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: History buffs, people obessessed with the black plague

Recommended to Ceridwen by: Lori, Mike Reynolds

Shelves: alternate-history, omg-were-all-going-to-die

History is weird, right? I mean, our lives and actions pass through this lens of the now, and then are magically transmuted into then, and rendered both complete and imperfect, all by the passage of immaterial time. Complete because it is over and done; imperfect because it's not-whole, artefacted, metonymous. One of the oddest sensations I can think of is that overpowering feeling of “No, no, this can't have happened this way; there must be a way of wishing this away,” when I screw something up...more

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Oct 08, 2012 Mosca rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People who love people... and history

Recommended to Mosca by: Kim Stanley Robinson

Shelves: favorites

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What if the White European Christians had almost all died out in in the fourteenth century?

Kim Stanley Robinson has written an Alternative History that isn't steam punk, nor Nazis winning WW2.

This is a smart, well constructed, work of historical inquiry that spans seven centuries without the assumed Caucasian and "Christian" historical domination. There are a small cast of well constructed thoroughly "human" characters who live through those seven centuries i...more .....................................

What if the White European Christians had almost all died out in in the fourteenth century?

Kim Stanley Robinson has written an Alternative History that isn't steam punk, nor Nazis winning WW2.

This is a smart, well constructed, work of historical inquiry that spans seven centuries without the assumed Caucasian and "Christian" historical domination. There are a small cast of well constructed thoroughly "human" characters who live through those seven centuries in a very different Eurasia, Africa, and eventually the two Americas than the ones with which we, today, are familiar.

These seven centuries are seen in the context of a traditional Buddhist cosmology. This means that a handful of characters live, die, and are reborn through many lifetimes in different cultures, religions, genders, races, and even species. They are almost always unaware of their past lives or their souls' recurrent intentions. And, most times, the reader is also left unaware of these links. These individual karmic paths are not essential to the main intent of this book. They are, however, fascinatingly traceable for the attentive reader. And these paths very frequently and subtly reassemble groups, friendships, and love attachments through the centuries according to Buddhist karmic law. If you read to love characters, you will be well rewarded following the labyrinths of karmic paths that separate souls and reunite them in new cultures and contexts.

These seven centuries of Earth's history rewritten are presented to us in a manner that loves us as humans (and "souls") while walking us through our seemingly eternal karmic traps of wars, domination, disappointments, betrayals, and redemptions.

Of course, those historic scientific discoveries "we all know" are now reworked in new cultural contexts with different results. This is the beauty of Alternative Histories. But with this handful of sleepwalking "souls" reborn repeatedly in their own karmic cycles, this vast history of civilizations reconfigured takes on an unexpected intimacy.

Enjoy this one.
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Jul 27, 2007 Zab rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: otherworlds

In retrospect, it's surprising that there aren't MORE fantasy novels about a group of people being reincarnated multiple times, with lives sprawling through a centuries-long alternate history. But, if there were, most all of them would not be as good as this.

The reincarnation plot (complete with matter-of-fact scenes set in the "bardo" between lives) is an excellent way of tempering what would otherwise be a sometimes depressing plot. Basically, the novel starts shortly after the Black Plague ki...more

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May 08, 2008 Jack rated it 5 of 5 stars

A classic of speculative fiction. This one has really stuck with me, and continues to inform my thinking on any number of topics, not least the clash of civilizations, the impermanence of human culture, the non-inevitability of European historical domination, how indigenous American societies might have survived and thrived, and more.

The book starts somewhat slowly, but is worth sticking with. Terrific circular structure to the storytelling becomes more and more powerful as the various tales and...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Ted rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi, lit-american

This was my first read of a book by Robinson. I will certainly be reading others.

It's alternative history, a very believable tale of how the world's civilizations would have (could have) developed if, in the fourteenth century, the plague that killed 30-60% of the people in Europe had instead killed virtually 100% (including almost all Christians and Jews), while being less virulent in the middle east and Asia. The subsequent six plus centuries (up to roughly the present day) are dominated by an...more This was my first read of a book by Robinson. I will certainly be reading others.

It's alternative history, a very believable tale of how the world's civilizations would have (could have) developed if, in the fourteenth century, the plague that killed 30-60% of the people in Europe had instead killed virtually 100% (including almost all Christians and Jews), while being less virulent in the middle east and Asia. The subsequent six plus centuries (up to roughly the present day) are dominated by an Old World population predominantly Taoist or Muslim, with generous contributions from Buddhism. From the latter the belief in reincarnation is appropriated as a central theme of the novel.

Most of the “Books” of the story, which deal with various crucial developments or turning points in these centuries, end with a short section set in the “bardo”, that state of existence in between two incarnations of a soul. In this section the main character(s) (usually more than one) of that Book relates their feelings about the life just concluded; often, we also have suspicions confirmed that these characters are reincarnations of characters from previous Books. (This sounds hokey the way I am describing it, but for me it added another dimension to the story.)
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I found the book’s references to the beliefs of the religions involved extremely interesting. The best of these was the 5th section of Book 2, The Road to Mecca, which I found to be a very convincing evocation of the Islamic haj. (Of course, whether it really is an accurate view, I know not.)

I also have to admit that what seem to be the views of Robinson on many of his characters’ deeply considered issues are similar to my own views. For example, in the last section of Book 6, one of the main characters writes “Wealth and the Four Great Inequalities”, in which he identifies these as follows:

… With this division of labor the subjugation of farmers by warriors and priests was institutionalized … This was the first inequality … the second and the third inequalities (were) of men over women and children … (and finally) added to the subjugation of farmers, women and the family was this fourth inequality, of race or group, leading to the subjugation of the most powerless peoples to slavery. And the unequal accumulation of wealth by the elites continued.

In fact this quote brings out a major theme of the book, and a major concern of many of the characters – that of the subjugation of women throughout history.

Altogether one of those works of fiction which I think I’ll dip into in the future, just to remember what Robinson said about certain things.
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Aug 18, 2012 MG Mason rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Kim Stanley Robinson is one of those rare breeds in SciFi today, he writes what is traditionally called “hard” science fiction but he differs from the likes of Alastair Reynolds, Greg Bear and Peter F. Hamilton in that there is a great deal of focus on the fundamental changes in society that new technological advances bring. In this way, he is very much like Ray Bradbury.

This is a departure from Robinson’s hard scifi though as he branches out to explore the realms of alternative history; but the...more Kim Stanley Robinson is one of those rare breeds in SciFi today, he writes what is traditionally called “hard” science fiction but he differs from the likes of Alastair Reynolds, Greg Bear and Peter F. Hamilton in that there is a great deal of focus on the fundamental changes in society that new technological advances bring. In this way, he is very much like Ray Bradbury.

This is a departure from Robinson’s hard scifi though as he branches out to explore the realms of alternative history; but the quality of the narrative does not suffer for the change in genre. This is book that explores and perhaps, gives us a clear indication of Robinson’s personal philosophies. I wasn’t surprised to discover later that Robinson is a Buddhist. Hinted at increasingly through his “Mars” series, this is the clearest indication yet.

Europe has been ravaged by the Black Death far more than it was in reality, so when travellers from the east reach western Europe they see devastation from which the European powers would never recover and the few remaining survivors are reduced to barbarism.

With Christianity and its influence on Europe (and eventually the New World) seemingly dead, we witness the rise of Islam, Buddhism and other eastern religions across the world unrestricted. We follow what at first I thought were the same families through history but are actually the same people reincarnated over and over again (hence his Buddhist beliefs). Far from feeling bludgeoned by his beliefs, Robinson is trying to write the novel as though the world he has created actually happened. Free from Christian traditions and mythologies, this is a world where the major faiths are Islam and Buddhism fighting literally or figuratively for dominance in the world.

The nations that develop go through pretty much the same events from our history: the discovery of the Americas, the enlightenment, reformation in Islamic Spain, world wars, female emancipation, atomic technology, a cold war and the global economy.

This is a heavy going novel considering the subject matter covering over 600 years of alternative history in ten books (chapters set in different time periods). Not for the feint of heart, but a rewarding and enlightening experience nonetheless. Robinson tried the alternate history experiment a second time in Vinland: The Dream

See more of my book reviews at my blog (less)

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Jul 21, 2008 Travis Johns rated it 2 of 5 stars

lesson to be learned: just because you like one book (or in this case, three) by a particular author doesn't necessarily have to imply that you will have to like all books. This, my darlings, is a blatant case in point.

Thy premise: The black plague knocks out 99 percent of Western Europe - so far, so good. However, instead of focusing on the immediate after effects of such an event, as is the case with the first chapter, albeit in somewhat of a too stylistically poetic fashion, the novel instea...more lesson to be learned: just because you like one book (or in this case, three) by a particular author doesn't necessarily have to imply that you will have to like all books. This, my darlings, is a blatant case in point.

Thy premise: The black plague knocks out 99 percent of Western Europe - so far, so good. However, instead of focusing on the immediate after effects of such an event, as is the case with the first chapter, albeit in somewhat of a too stylistically poetic fashion, the novel instead embarks on a parallel (note, parallel, not alternative) history of the world as the rest of the world matures in the void of the white man's burden... which is also an interesting notion, except for one small snatch - each and every single story focuses on the reincarnated souls of approximately 4 individuals, all with similar names who are somehow or another responsible for, oh, basically EVERY major invention and innovation in the history of mankind, and somehow in the thick of it all, nearly always end up being massacred at the end of their respective chapters... by about the third chapter, oh my children, the proverbial jig was, oh, just kindasorta up and I was officially bored... and only reading the novel for a.) hope of improvement and b.) lack of any idea as to what i wanted to read next.... ho hum.

Back to the parallel history aspect - just slightly weak. especially with regard to temporal events. somehow, nearly every major invention in the novel coincided with its temporal occurrence in our respective tomes - the telescope and gravity in the 17th century, an industrial revolution with trains and steam ships in the 18th, a world war in the mid-20th, etc. Many apologies, but being a history buff, I know how it all happened - if i want to read about alternatives, I'd hope that it would be something other than just a word scramble of proper nouns as to the wheres and whats that form the specifics of said alternication... not to mention that one single Sufi alchemist somehow manages to claim the merits of Newton, Gallileo and Kepler all in one... erm, mildly suspect, ja?

eh, just thought I'd share... (less)

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May 13, 2008 Saadiq Wolford rated it 2 of 5 stars

Dear Kim Stanley Robinson,

I think your Mars trilogy is one of the greatest pieces of science fiction every written. I've read it twice in the past ten years and will probably read it three more times before I grow old. I even read the first book in your eco-thriller trilogy and, though there's not much plot to speak of, thought it was interesting. In short, I love you, man, you're mi hermano.

But, damn, how did you manage to screw The Years of Rice and Salt up? The concept is golden: the plague c...more

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Jul 02, 2007 Koshin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really enjoyed this book. I wanted to read the book on its premise alone: What if Europe had been wiped out by the plague, how would world history have been shaped without a European influence?

The book is a series of different short stories that catalogue the lives of people at different points in the alternate history, from the time after the plagues in Europe until the modern era. Each story is an alternate history different important points that coincide with history :- The Islamic renaissa...more

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Mar 28, 2008 Jeremy Wineberg rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

this is an intriguing book about a group of characters that keep getting reincarnated together, who end up fleshing out an alternative world history beginning from a "what if" that has most of christian europe dying out from a much more virile form of the black plague in the middle ages. while this may sound overly complex, and it could be, robinson's style and solid characters hold the book together, which almost, but not quite, ends up functioning more like an inter-related set of short storie...more

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Jan 20, 2011 Nikki rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction-alternatehistory

Rather than a novel, this is more like a series of short stories/novellas. It follows the same characters through various incarnations. In some of them the connections are easy to make, in others it's not so easy. The alternate history aspect is interesting, and couldn't have been fully explored without this device, I suppose, but I found it jarring to be jerked from time period to time period, culture to culture, and I never really fell in love with the characters as continuations of the previo...more

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Sep 24, 2008 Joe rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really like Kim Stanley Robinson. His fiction focuses on relationships primarily, both among people to each other, and between people and the world they live in. He's definitely among the most "literary" of the science fiction A-listers, but does not use his writing to create a sense of detachment (unlike, say, David Foster Wallace, who's literary in the "oh, I'm so above everything" school, which I fucking hate). It's always a pleasure to take in the words that Robinson writes, above and beyo...more

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Sep 15, 2008 Cleverusername2 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This novel wasn't what I thought it would be, but that's a compliment in my book. I thought it would be a sort of medieval version of The Stand, with hoary images of Black Death ravaged cities all over Europe. Instead Robinson uses the big "What If" gimmick (what if the Black Death was 99% fatal all over Europe, causing white Christian European civilization to become a mere historical footnote) as a jumping board to write a wholly different narrative.

It is rare to read a novel with such insight...more

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Jul 14, 2008 Chadwick rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: sf, best-books-ever-man, utopian-anarchist

An alternate history, in which the what-if is, what if European culture had been totally eradicated by the Black Plague. Using the conceit of a group of repeatedly reincarnated souls returning again and again as the thousand-odd year saga unfolds, Robinson hits yet again with a thoroughly brilliant work that asks all of the important questions that face us concerning life on earth, most crucially: how do we get it right?

In The Years of Rice and Salt, the world ends up being divided between Isla...more An alternate history, in which the what-if is, what if European culture had been totally eradicated by the Black Plague. Using the conceit of a group of repeatedly reincarnated souls returning again and again as the thousand-odd year saga unfolds, Robinson hits yet again with a thoroughly brilliant work that asks all of the important questions that face us concerning life on earth, most crucially: how do we get it right?

In The Years of Rice and Salt, the world ends up being divided between Islam and China for most of what we consider to be the years 622-2002 C.E. All of the great scientific advances, all of the discoveries of the renaissance are undertaken by these two civilizations. Much of the ensuing history parallels very closely what we consider to have actually happened.

A notable difference that Robinson proposes lies in the failure of either China or any of the Muslim powers to completely colonize the New World (due, perhaps to the lack of Europeans as an enemy on the Eurasian continent, leading to constant strife between the two powers), allowing the Iroquois League to expand into a major world power, with the help of the members of the Japanese diaspora. Their matrilineal succession and league-based structure becomes an inspiration for various progressive and revolutionary groups in both China and the Dar-al-Islam.

Like much of Robinson's work, this is emphatically a utopian novel, but with the author's characteristic intellectual rigor. One of the functions of the reincarnation device is to emphasize that utopia is something that is built incrementally, taking lifetimes of failure and imperceptible, minuscule progress before any possibility of change can be enacted. This is further driven home by the conversations between the principal characters during their brief spells in the bardo, as they await their next incarnations, momentarily reminded of all of their previous lives.

I think that this work is notable for a number of reasons. What sticks with me upon this first reading is Robinson's focus upon gender equality as crucial for social progress. That is, of course, obvious to most educated readers alive today, but his imagining of the rise of feminism in the monolithic cultures of Islam and imperial China is quite sharp. One character goes so far, in attempting to explain Islam's loss in the novel's analogue of WWI, as to say that Islam's greatest weakness lies within its conversion of fully half of its society to illiterate beasts of burden.

Robinson may be preaching to the choir, but this novel is a great example of the unique potency of speculative fiction to ask questions about how we fix the fucking mess we're in.(less)

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Jul 08, 2007 Cpd rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: whativeread

We had people over for the Fourth for the fireworks and, of course, the house had to be cleaned and by that, I mean all the books sprawled about the floor in lazy, often surly piles, crowding every available planed surface had to be reined in and brought to order. Rice & Salt got rammed into a corner atop the largest bookshelf in the living room and I'm looking at it now -- it balefully staring back at me.

I do not like this book. In fact, I've been trying to dump it for the last -- however...more

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Aug 13, 2007 S.A. Parham rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

I'd seen this heavily recommended by others with similar reading tastes, so I had high expectations for it. The premise - what if the Black Plague killed 99% of Europe's population - was intriguing. For the first two or three sections, the reincarnation system of recycling the main characters even worked for me. But after a while, I started to feel like I was reading a textbook. "This happened in this era. This happened in the next era." Half the time, I didn't see the characters long enough to...more

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Sep 09, 2007 joyce rated it 2 of 5 stars

Hmm. I liked the Mars trilogy and had high hopes for this one but couldn't get more than 3/4 of the way through. Premise - excellent. Execution - awkward. "What if the Black Death had wiped out 99% of Europe's population instead of only 30-40%?" Whole course of history altered, etc etc. Unfortunately, it was too ambitious and might have worked better at half the scope, with the rest left to the reader's imagination.

Robinson doesn't give you enough time to really get attached to the characters be...more

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Sep 24, 2008 Terrill rated it 3 of 5 stars

Continuing my thematic reading (books about America during the 15th century), this is a fiction book describing an alternate history in which 99% of Europe is killed by the plague. Consequently, there is no Columbus, and most of the world is Buddhist or Muslim.

It's an interesting concept, which Robinson follows for over 1000 years. Every hundred pages or so he would jump ahead a few hundred years to another era and new protagonists--I find that in books like that, it's always hard to switch fro...more

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Feb 07, 2009 Art rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, fantasy

In an alternative history, the Black Death destroys Europe and the world is divided between China and the nations of Islam, with India and the New World asserting themselves in lesser ways. It is seen through the eyes of the same group of people, reincarnated time after time, striving to make the world a better place. It's a neat premise, and it starts out fairly strong... but I honestly wish the author resisted the temptation to include page after page after page of various character musing abo...more

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Jan 13, 2009 Scott rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of the most creative ideas as a plot device I have ever read. This book tells an alternate history of the world from the dark ages to present day. The story starts with the black plague decimating almost the entirety of the European population, with the result of an eastward expansion into the new world, instead of the west. The confrontation between the Chinese and the Native Americans unfolds in an entirely different manner, to name just one of countless ways in which the world heads in di...more

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Feb 07, 2013 Michael Battaglia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Speculating about changes in history is always kind of a fun game and not automatically restricted to Friday night frat party activities for drunken history majors. SF has always kind of let itself nod toward the notion of "everything is different now!" and once you've spent your time extrapolating into a far future, casting the lens back to see how the world would be different if, say, nobody invented boats until fifty years ago isn't too much of a stretch. While this kind of writing doesn't ge...more Speculating about changes in history is always kind of a fun game and not automatically restricted to Friday night frat party activities for drunken history majors. SF has always kind of let itself nod toward the notion of "everything is different now!" and once you've spent your time extrapolating into a far future, casting the lens back to see how the world would be different if, say, nobody invented boats until fifty years ago isn't too much of a stretch. While this kind of writing doesn't generally get pegged as "SF" because it doesn't have spaceships and aliens, the genre has sort of co-opted it as a sub-genre. Once "Man in the High Castle" came out, no one wanted to let it be the only girl at the party (although "Bring the Jubilee", a novel where the South won the Civil War, came out slightly earlier, and I'm sure there are even earlier examples).

Most of those novels, however, aren't big sweeping attempts to gauge the span of history, or if they are they tend to ignore the personal side of things and focus on becoming an alternate history textbook. What Kim Stanley Robinson has decided to do here is craft an epic, showcasing hundreds of years of changes that stem from a single thing gone different, and yet give us a ground level view of history at the same time. It's a meaty tome, over seven hundred pages in paperback and covering lots of ground, not only in events but philosophically as well. Featuring a cast of dozens and more wrong history than a century's worth of college level April Fool's jokes can manage, he makes a good case how a single plausible event can alter the trajectory of the world. But does it work as a story as opposed to an intellectual exercise?

Y-e-s. As in "almost". He kicks things off in the nether regions of history, as the Mongols come to invade only to discover that the Black Plague basically killed everyone in Europe. Meaning that without Christianity to pop up and become dominant, the world has plenty of room left for Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists to take over, with the American Indians eventually joining the fray. To keep matters consistent, he comes up with the concept of having the same people get reincarnated constantly through history, having the same first letter of their names repeat so you can figure out who is who and seeing how their personalities remain the same throughout time. Thus we get to see Muslim influence grow and flower, the Chinese entering North America first, India becoming far more of a power and Japan apparently getting the shaft, as Caucasians become a definite minority and Europeans and their quaint stories about that Jesus guy becoming a fond myth. But, hey, they sure were fun while they were around, right?

As it plays out, it doesn't so much give us a glimpse of a novel as a series of short stories with characters that we're told are the same but don't seem to act like they know each other until they're dead. In fact, sometimes it seems like the sections were all written separately with the same theme and assembled for the novel (the first section alone feels utterly different than what follows, and its constant telling us to read the next chapter gets so annoying that I'm surprised no one told him to remove it). Dropping in and out of history gives us the constant chance to play catch-up as we try to figure out what changes were taking place in the interim. Yet because the characters are so ground-level, we often don't get a good view of the rest of the world simply because their mobility is so limited, especially in olden times when camel was your only means of transportation. Which is realistic but at times can blunt your knowledge of what's been happening, meaning that unless you are a history scholar (or have a good general background in world history), a lot of the subtle changes are going to be lost on you.

The reincarnation theme tends to hamstring the book, as the scenes in the bardo for some reason feel flippant and out of place, fantasy intruding into a book that is otherwise fairly realistic. Instead of achieving a poetic approach to the reincarnation concept (like Yukio Mishima did in his Sea of Fertility quartet, granted the themes are night and day here) it gets treated matter of factly as the characters randomly discover they've had other lives (and then die anyway) or just blithely go on without realizing it. Which gives us very little in terms of emotional arcs, we're watching events happen just as the characters are but without any pieces of them to anchor us on either end, we're dropping by to watch them for a few months or years before popping off again.

Don't get me wrong, some parts are great. The early scenes of an eerie empty Europe are chilling. The book for me doesn't quite start to pick up until the Chinese reach North America because that's the first time things feel really different. From then on things tend to steamroll (although the Alchemist section is great fun, with an ending that is either the epitome of bleak or Robinson indulging in really dark humor) and it becomes fascinating to watch as the world divides itself along ethnic lines (as another reviewer notes, without a melting pot country like America, everyone tends to stick to their own side of the dancehall). Robinson seems to suggest that the problems that can plague those countries in the here and now would still trouble them (for one, Islam still struggles against the more radical elements of itself, and China has issues with how the government oppresses the citizens) and the world doesn't seem better as differently shaped. There's a Long War that ends poorly for everyone, but atomic weapons don't seem to be a factor.

But as the book wheels toward its end it becomes much more interested in debating historical philosophy, especially in its last two sections, and we don't get history as much as people talking about history, as the characters espouse a near utopian ideal that seems to be based around a benign reading of socialism (amusingly, rich people have got it made in this world too, which at least proves why no one ever likes the rich) and trying to push the world into a better state. The last section manages to pull out of that with a few autumnal scenes of a world with a different flavor to what we know, but if you're expecting a culmination of sorts you'll have to look elsewhere. History has its own messy facets but the book doesn't so much conclude as much as pick a place to stop, with the implication we've seen enough and its going to go on without us. How satisfying you find that may depend on your view of history, whether it matters that we're all on this planet clearly going somewhere and building toward an ideal, or what matters is our day to day plodding to keep ourselves content in our own little slice of this life. Both views, in their way, are probably okay, I'm just not sure what kind of story that makes. (less)

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Jan 27, 2013 April rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a detailed, carefully crafted alternate history masterpiece based on the idea that Europe was wiped out by plague and so did not become the incubator of civilization. Instead cultures of India (many gods), China (no god), and Islam (one god) dominate the world. I wish I liked this book better than I did. I like the ideas of individuals striving against odds to make things better and knowing that they can only "fail better." I like the way Robinson shows that ideas which occur before thei...more

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Dec 10, 2012 Mel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 21st-century-fiction, scifi

This book is an alternate history that looks at the idea that Europe died out with the Black Death and it was up to Muslim and Chinese civilisations to take over the world. I had to admit that it sounded rather dubious, but I had read and thoroughly enjoyed Robinson’s Mars trilogy so I thought it’s be worth a read. The first chapter was set up in the traditional Chinese storytelling style, with poetry interspersed and “if you want to know what happens next you will read the next chapter”. The ma...more This book is an alternate history that looks at the idea that Europe died out with the Black Death and it was up to Muslim and Chinese civilisations to take over the world. I had to admit that it sounded rather dubious, but I had read and thoroughly enjoyed Robinson’s Mars trilogy so I thought it’s be worth a read. The first chapter was set up in the traditional Chinese storytelling style, with poetry interspersed and “if you want to know what happens next you will read the next chapter”. The main character was said to a reincarnation of Monkey King, which I found particularly odd as besides from mentioning this on practically the first page there was nothing about the character that was anything like Monkey and it never was brought up again. The thing that I found most amusing about the Mars trilogy was the way they discovered the secrets of immortality (in an otherwise quite hard sci-fi book) so that the same characters would be able to survive the hundreds of years that it would take to terraform Mars. Here Robinson had the characters reincarnate (in a rather non-Buddhist take on reincarnation) so that the souls would continue. This device was played out with the characters from one story going to the next with the same letter starting their name, so you had B. K. and I. as well as a few more minor characters. Fortunately this wasn’t quite so annoying as it sounded. I found the characters interesting, it was interesting to see the character development played out within and across reincarnations. K. was definitely my favourite character. It was also interesting that I became more important as the story progressed and B. less so. Despite all the flaws with the book I found that I did care what happened and got caught up in the action and enjoyed it despite myself. The largest problem was that the events paralled European development too closely without any explanation for it. The two worst examples of this were the Chinese discovering America and being taken with all the gold there and using their firearms to terrify the local populace into submission. (With no explanation as to why gold was valued or where they had gotten their firearms). They were simply the conquistadors speaking Mandarin (another error). The worst example from the Arab side of the story was the alchemists discovering the scientific method and redoing renaissance Italy. The author totally failed to have any insight into Arabic culture or scientific thought and just had the characters duplicate the invention process of the west. I thought this was by far the weakest story. Towards the end things got a little better, though there was still the Arab civilisation where women were coming and doing their own thing, which was interesting and I was enjoying, until he mentioned they hyper inflation, caused because they lost the war, and their were references to “wheelbarrows of money” and I realised we were just back in Weimar Berlin. Terribly disappointing. On the whole I enjoyed the Arabic/Muslim stories more than the Chinese ones. This was because I no so little about the history and culture I was less likely to see the glaring errors in the writing and could just relax and enjoy it more. Of the Chinese stories I think my favourite was Widow Kang, it was the only story that actually seemed Chinese. Though I totally disagreed with her husband’s definition of what history was, it felt like a story that could actually have happened. The chapter on “the long war” was very well done. It was impossible to tell whether they were actually fighting in the afterlife or still in the real world and it seemed to not matter. I also felt that a lot of the interaction between civilisations was lost. India was almost totally ignored, and with both the Arabic and Chinese civilisations having a huge interest in India I felt it should have been much more important than it was, or at least mentioned. The same is also true for all the Central Asian civilisations that were mostly ignored. The history of interaction between the Muslims and the Chinese before the start of the book was ignored, and the two acted like the other didn’t exist until finally they did clash in a huge war. It was a rather frustrating book for a historian, particularly a historian who focuses on one of the civilisations in question. But despite all the problems with it I found that it was enjoyable, I felt a connection to the characters and was moved by their troubles and wanted to know how it would all end. I’m not sure I’d recommend it though I would definitely say you should read his Mars trilogy if you like sci-fi. It was interesting and frustrating but overall I did enjoy it.(less)

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Aug 19, 2012 Alesa rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a book that will really make you think about all kinds of things. The basic premise is fascinating. What if all the Europeans had died out in the Black Plague, and instead, the Moslems, Chinese and Indians had invented technology, and colonized the rest of the world. AND what if the same small groups of people keep reincarnating into various lives, over and over, without ever recognizing one another?

I can't imagine how much research Robinson must have done for this masterpiece. He has us...more

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May 15, 2012 Sexy Manatee rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

All in all, this was quite a good read. I suppose my chief complaint about this book was (view spoiler) Regardless it is a truly fantastical story/journey which also showcases a surprising breadth of knowledge on the author's part, I must assume, anyway...more

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Mar 09, 2012 Anne Stockwell rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of serious alternate histories.

Long, disturbing, rewarding. An advance scout for the Golden Horde looks down from a high pass westward into a Europe that has been almost completely wiped out by the Black Death...From this premise, Robinson creates a world minus Europe (or Christianity, if I remember correctly). In the beginning, the great powers are China and the world of Islam; others, such as India, develop through the book. He has a wonderful framing device: he develops a small cohort of souls and follows them through succ...more

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Jun 08, 2011 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

KSR is one of my favorite modern fiction writers. I was only introduced to him 3 years ago, but fell in love quickly. I have read the Mars trilogy and the Science in the Capitol trilogy, which really needs a better name. This book lived up to my high expectations.

I wish I could pinpoint what makes KSR so believable to me. He says something happens in his stories and I believe them. Sometimes they are big sweeping things and often he gives no details, but I believe him and accept them.

KSR’s str...more KSR is one of my favorite modern fiction writers. I was only introduced to him 3 years ago, but fell in love quickly. I have read the Mars trilogy and the Science in the Capitol trilogy, which really needs a better name. This book lived up to my high expectations.

I wish I could pinpoint what makes KSR so believable to me. He says something happens in his stories and I believe them. Sometimes they are big sweeping things and often he gives no details, but I believe him and accept them.

KSR’s strength is his characters. They are fascinating. This book is really a collection of short stories and each story has fascinating characters. I wanted to know them more. I wanted to know more about their lives. Only one, Nsara, was I ready for it to end.

KSR challenges me to think in ways that few other authors do. (Margaret Atwood comes to mind) KSR wants humanity to realize the course it is on and make changes. He seems to believe that humanity can overcome the challenges we face and that science can lead the way. Repeatedly he shows how Religion and Politics have failed humanity and that Science needs to step up to the plate. He could be accused of being an optimist, but even the successes in this book and others are muted, so he is not Pollyanna.

Something I love about KSR is all the rabbit trails and tidbits he throws out. They appear to be interesting factoids or tidbits that I like to think hold his interest, so he figures out ways to toss them into his books. They make me think and often I wish he would expand on them. But I think he touches on them lightly on purpose, to spark action in the reader to find more. And it has worked a number of times on me.

KSR is a champion of women in all his books, but it comes out strongest in this one. He comes back to the point repeatedly that women have been repressed through almost every culture in recorded history. But where women have held power or at least equal footing, these cultures tend to be some of the fairest and great models to follow. Maybe it is a chicken and egg problem, but KSR credits women as the driving force for goodness and equality, a counterbalance to men’s desire to possess and accumulate and master.

KSR also promotes the idea that life has seasons. He frequently has his characters’ lives change and recognize these changes as a new season. This has been very true in my own life and I like how KSR champions and encourages it. I grew up believing that after college, life would reach some static point where things level off and stay mostly the same. But that has not been true at all. Life is in a constant state of flux from relationships, to jobs, to mental states, to interests. And even within something like fraternal relationships there are seasons and changes. I am encouraged to embrace all these changes and let them be what they are. It motivates me to invest in areas of life I want to change, because change they will, whether I want them to or not: my efforts might help define their next season. It also helps me appreciate the good seasons as they come because they can’t last forever, but that does not make them any less sweet.

Hard to pick out my favorite story of the book. The Alchemist & Widow Kang would be front runners. But I think I will go with the first story, Awake to Emptiness. It is chilling and sets the premise of the book well. KSR will continue to be in my reading mix. Maybe The Three Californias will be next???
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May 03, 2011 Daniel Roy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: alternate-history, favorite

Let me start by saying that I'm not generally a fan of Kim Stanley Robinson's work. I loved Red Mars, then stumbled through Green Mars and gave up in disgust at Blue Mars. I found they were filled with exposition and endless descriptions of landscapes, and I really didn't like the fact that the main characters stuck it out through three novels instead of allowing more interesting characters to take their place.

I felt drawn to The Years of Rice and Salt, even though the same annoyances seemed pre...more Let me start by saying that I'm not generally a fan of Kim Stanley Robinson's work. I loved Red Mars, then stumbled through Green Mars and gave up in disgust at Blue Mars. I found they were filled with exposition and endless descriptions of landscapes, and I really didn't like the fact that the main characters stuck it out through three novels instead of allowing more interesting characters to take their place.

I felt drawn to The Years of Rice and Salt, even though the same annoyances seemed present. That being said, if like me you were burnt by Blue Mars but are intrigued by the premise of this book - do yourself a favor and pick it up. It's a work of staggering immensity, yet such a personal and touching novel that one wonders how historical scope and intimate drama could ever be weaved together so finely. The "immortality" of the main characters, while a mere plot device in the Mars trilogy, is at the core of the theme of Years of Rice and Salt : it speaks of the role of individuals in History, of how individual actions and lives weave the tapestry of History, and how the dramas of daily lives influence and are influenced by the unfolding twists and turns of Humanity. The individual lives it depicts are poignant, and play superbly against the backdrop of this alternate history where China and Islam are the two major powers of the world. More than a plot device, reincarnation is used here to paint deeply personal portraits of each period of history. Of particular interest is the role that Native Americans play in this alternate history : the way their culture grows and envelops other nations is, I felt, the true tragedy at the heart of Rice and Salt, speaking of squandered opportunities when the West conquered the New World.

The novel builds like a puzzle through 11 stages of human history, and what finally emerges is a humanist, ecologist and even feminist tale of compassion, tolerance and hope, something that transcends its alternate history roots to speak of the Heart of Mankind. If it were just for its historical scope, The Years of Rice and Salt would have been an interesting anecdote in the alternate history genre. Instead, this novel is a major achievement that transcends science-fiction, and should stand at the very top of the alternate history genre for years to come, and as Robinson's crowning achievement. (less)

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Jan 27, 2011 Jared Logan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Amazing book! The novel is really ten novellas set in an alternate history where the black plague wiped out 99% of Europe's population (instead of simply two-thirds as it did in our world). You go through 700 years of history as you follow three souls who are reincarnated into ten different lifetimes. As nerdy as that premise might sound, this is a book that will appeal to non-geeks as well as lovers of sci-fi and alternate history.

The author Kim Stanley Robinson shows a breadth of knowledge th...more

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About Kim Stanley Robinson

Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer, probably best known for his award-winning Mars trilogy.

His work delves into ecological and sociological themes regularly, and many of his novels appear to be the direct result of his own scientific fascinations, such as the 15 years of research and lifelong fascination with Mars which culminated in his most famous work. He has, due to his...more

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Forty Signs of Rain (Science in the Capit0l, #1)

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“We will go out into the world and plant gardens and orchards to the horizons, we will build roads through the mountains and across the deserts, and terrace the mountains and irrigate the deserts until there will be garden everywhere, and plenty for all, and there will be no more empires or kingdoms, no more caliphs, sultans, emirs, khans, or zamindars, no more kings or queens or princes, no more quadis or mullahs or ulema, no more slavery and no more usury, no more property and no more taxes, no more rich and no more poor, no killing or maiming or torture or execution, no more jailers and no more prisoners, no more generals, soldiers, armies or navies, no more patriarchy, no more caste, no more hunger, no more suffering than what life brings us for being born and having to die, and then we will see for the first time what kind of creatures we really are.” — 24 people liked it

“Every moment an epiphany arrives, and cleaves the mountain asunder.” — 4 people liked it

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