The Years of Rice and Salt - by Kim Stanley Robinson (Paperback)

About the Book

Hailed by "The New York Times Book Review" as "eye-opening, " this alternative history of the last 600 years begins as the Black Death kills nearly everyone in Europe, and China, India, and the nations of Islam now control the world.

Book Synopsis

WINNER OF THE LOCUS AWARD - The bestselling author of the Mars trilogy boldly reimagines the past seven hundred years in this "exceptional and engrossing" (New York Post) saga, constructing a world vastly different from the one we know. . .

"A thoughtful, magisterial alternate history from one of science fiction's most important writers."--The New York Times Book Review

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 the plague had killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed? The Years of Rice and Salt is a look at the history that could have been--one that stretches across centuries, sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, and spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation.

Through the eyes of soldiers and kings, explorers and philosophers, inventors and exiles, renowned storyteller Kim Stanley Robinson navigates a world where Buddhism and Islam are the most influential and practiced religions, while Christianity is a mere historical footnote. Probing the most profound questions as only he can, Robinson shines his extraordinary light on the place of religion, culture, power--and even love--in this bold new world.

Review Quotes

"A thoughtful, magisterial alternate history from one of science fiction's most important writers."--The New York Times Book Review

"Exceptional and engrossing."--New York Post

"Ambitious . . . ingenious."--Newsday

PRAISE FOR KIM STANLEY ROBINSON'S Red Mars WINNER OF THE NEBULA AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL

"A tremendous achievement."--The Washington Post Book World

"An absorbing novel . . . a scientifically informed imagination of rare ambition at work."--The New York Times Book Review

"Promises to become a classic . . .This is epic science fiction in the best sense of the term-thoughtful, provoking, and haunting."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch

About the Author

Kim Stanley Robinson is a winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. He is the author of more than twenty books, including the bestselling Mars trilogy and the critically acclaimed The Ministry for the Future, Forty Signs of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below, Sixty Days and Counting, The Years of Rice and Salt, and Galileo's Dream. He has been named as one of Time magazine's "Heroes of the Environment." He serves on the board of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute. He lives in Davis, California.