The Years of Rice and Salt (Hardcover)

Kim Stanley Robinson's ambitious exploration of alternative history in The Years of Rice and Salt poses the daunting question "How would our world have developed without Europe?" (Or, rather, without European culture?) When the scouts of the Mongol leader Temur the Lame (Tamburlaine) enter Hungary in 1405, they find only emptiness and death. Plague has swept Europe off the gameboard of history.

The centuries that follow are initially dominated by expanding Islamic nations and the monolithic Chinese empire. It's a grand chronicle of rising and falling cultures, with individuals forever struggling to make a difference to the slow-motion landslide of events. Extra continuity is given by a touch of fantasy as the Buddhist wheel of reincarnation brings back the same characters (coded by initials) again and again with varied roles, relations and sexes. Their stories are touching and very human.

Episodes of our own history are artfully echoed. America is discovered by Chinese ships from the west, with fateful effects for the native tribes and the "Inka" theocracy further south. The scientific ideas of da Vinci's Renaissance are reflected by the Alchemist of Samarkand, reluctantly devising fresh weapons of war. New forms of government arise. Islamic splinter groups move into empty Europe and in that softer climate develop dangerous notions like feminism. A First World War eventually comes, later than we'd expect but horribly prolonged.

Then Muslim scientists begin to see the implications of the mass-energy theories of a savant from the Indian subcontinent:

Invisible worlds, full of energy and power: sub-atomic harems, each pulsing on the edge of a great explosion...There was no escaping the latent violence at the heart of things. Even the stones were mortal.

This immense tapestry of history that never happened is constantly illuminated by the small comedies, tragedies, romances and triumphs of memorably real individuals. The Years of Rice and Salt is a brave new landmark in alternate history, deservedly shortlisted for the British SF Association and Arthur C Clarke awards. --David Langford --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Best known for his epic science fiction, Robinson has produced a massive historical thriller that is likely to bring his work to a legion of new readers. That's not to say he has left SF concepts behind: a Great Plague has destroyed Europe, and the world is a very different place. Bold Bardash is a horseman in the army of Temur. As he rides west across the Steppe and onto the Magyar Plain, he discovers a town in which everyone is dead, destroyed by the plague. Into a now empty land pour the opportunists: the merchants, the slavers and the warlords. Into this complex and colourfully detailed narrative, Robinson has woven a haunting poetic strand that is never subsumed in the adventure and sweep of the tale.

This is an epic journey through many hundreds of years of Eastern culture, charting its shaping of world history following the almost complete annihilation of Western civilization by a great plague. The journey begins with Bold, a Mongolian army deserter, who crosses the ravaged wastelands of the west until he reaches Egypt where he is sold as a slave. There he meets Kyu, a young black eunuch, and the two go on to find work in the Forbidden City in Beijing. Thus begins this 're-incarnation compendium' in which Bold and Kyu are born again many times over, escorting us through history in their many guises - Chinese explorer, alchemist, Samurai warrior, poet, doctor, physicist. But always their names begin with the same letters, one of the many literary devices employed by the author to help the reader steer a course through territory which is both uncharted and unimaginable. The book chronicles a centuries-long battle for supremacy - religious, military and scientific - and culminates in a 'long war'. Although it has obvious parallels with the first world war, with its vivid and horrific descriptions of trench warfare, this is a 67-year conflict between Chinese and Muslim civilization leaving a billion dead. This weighty tome, biblical in its scope and style, provides a challenging read, both in terms of size (over 700 pages) and in the complexity of its arguments. These include lengthy explorations of the world's religions and philosophies, technical descriptions of scientific advances and military capability and involved discussion of some of the great moral questions of history such as distribution of wealth and the subjugation of women. The reader who can cope with all of this will be left with an unforgettable picture of how the world might have been and a sense of how events could yet unfold. (Kirkus UK)

Hugo winner Robinson (Antarctica, 1998, etc.) follows three characters over seven centuries on an alternate Earth in which Islam and Buddhism are the dominant religions. Her charming though ponderous study in comparative religions opens with wandering Mongol scout Bold Bardash stumbling through an abandoned Athens, where the Black Death has wiped out everyone. Christianity just about dies out, Judaism is a minority cult, and, after many barbarous and pointless struggles between petty warlords, the New World is discovered by the Chinese Navy, and the Renaissance is played out as a conflict between a Middle Eastern Islam and Chinese Buddhism. Robinson explores ten periods in this alternate history with earthy, pragmatic Bardash, impetuous, vengeful Kyu, and quietly intellectual I-Li undergoing many reincarnations: orphaned Indian girl, Sufi mystic, African eunuch, Sultan's wife, Chinese admiral, dourly brilliant alchemist, feminist poet, village midwife, glassblower, theologian, etc. Robinson avoids the battles and calamities that mar most alternate histories, leaving his characters to discuss at sometimes tedious length the esoteric ironies among evolving theological and political ideologies as China assumes unsteady mastery of the globe. Overlong, but blessed with moments of wry and gentle beauty as friends and antagonists rediscover each other under different guises in exotically dangerous locales. (Kirkus Reviews)