This one's going right in the category of OMG this is epic SF of a very serious nature and scope.It goes well beyond the "normal" subgenre of alternate histories to throw us into a vast and very impressive exploration of China and India as they completely dominate the culture and space of the entire world under the slight alteration: that most of the Caucasian world died off in the Black Plague.It's really gorgeous and it flows really well. Expect many short novellas giving us snippets of time f...

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...

Now there is nothing left to doBut scribble in the dusk and watch with the belovedPeach blossoms float downstream.Looking back at all the long yearsAll that happened this way and thatI think I liked most the rice and the salt. The Years of Rice and Salt is a thick, dense alternate history spanning continents and centuries. Its vast cast of characters includes, as the blurb puts it, "soldiers and kings, explorers and philosophers, slaves and scholars". Through their eyes we see the forces that s...

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 a...

All the stars!And in the same breath I have to say that I can understand why a part of the readers couldn't even finish it.Kim Stanley Robinson does not only write an alternate history he literally invents the whole of human history anew, starting in the time of the great plague spanning the generations til the era of atomphysics. In his story Christianity is nothing but a footnote in the annals, the fate of humankind is orchestrated by Muslim empires, China and Buddhism. To bring this large spa...

This rating is for the audio book.This is another of those books I tried to read two or three times previously and never could do it despite knowing I would like it once I got involved in it. I would read a bit, then my mind would take off on its own little jaunt, and, well - look! A squirrel! Sometimes a book is meant to be read out loud to me while I knit.. "The Years Of Rice and Salt" posits a world where Christianity is for all intents wiped out by the plague, leaving Europe nearly uninhabit...

4 1/2 stars. Now rounded up to 5Alternative 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,

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...

.....................................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...

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.Worth-noticing-what-ifs: "The Years of Rice and Salt" by Kim Stanley RobinsonOne of the few things I really remember from high school is my old 9th Year History teacher delivering a great lesson about what the essence of understanding history is... for every event you basically need three elements- Motive, Capacity and Opportunity (rather like a murder I guess).

Rosado on the road.Description: It is the fourteenth century and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur - the coming of the Black Death. History teaches us that a third of Europe's population was destroyed. But what if? What if the plague killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed? This is a look at the history that could have been: a history that stretches across centuries, a history that sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble...

Finishing this book was a chore. It was impressively researched, decently written, and incredibly insightful, but at the end of the day I found myself glancing at my watch and trying to remember why I was supposed to care. The marketing of the book is quite misleading. This isn't just a straightforward alternate history book--What if the Black Death killed off 99% of Europeans and the rest of the world's civilizations survived? Rather more importantly, it is a story about reincarnation. You star...

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...

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...