I read Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Years of Rice and Salt last year on my vacation in India. I really didn’t like this book, though I pushed myself to read the whole thing. The premise of this alternate history is that the black plague decimated Europe, leaving it nearly empty. As a result, China and the Muslim kingdoms dominate the world, with some influence from India. It’s really a series of shorter stories set along various times in history
tied together by the idea that the characters are re-incarnating into the characters in subsequent stories. These souls are fighting a battle in the afterworld for control or something, and they keep getting sent back. Frankly, that just distracted from the story for me. And the various stories were much too long and many of them just didn’t seem to be too interesting.
I previously read one of Mr. Robinson’s Mars series, and ended up not liking it either. It’ll be a while before I pick up another book of his.
Author: Kim Stanley Robinson
Title: The years of rice and salt
Awards: 2003 Locus Best Science Fiction Novel
Imprint/Publisher: Bantam Books / Random House
Format: Mass market paperback
Publication date: June 2003 (March 2002 in hardcover)
Length: 763 p.
ISBN: 0-553-58007-8
Subject: Black death — Fiction
LC Classification: PS3568.O2893 Y43 2002
