Rating: 
Summary: Flawed, but worthy
Review: Yes, there is too much philosophical rambling. Yes, it's difficult to maintain a novel where the main characters actually lose their identities with each new incarnation. And I'm not sure if any other reviewer has mentioned it, but there's a real lack of description in the modern scenes, so that we don't get the actual smell and feel of what the world is like. Still, this is a worthwhile book with strengths and charms that make reading it a positive experience. Perhaps foremost, it shows how alternate history can be a mature, adult enterprise when ripped from the hands of infantile, untalented writers like Harry Turtledove. Robinson is a real writer. He is a talented writer. Here, I think he's bitten off more than he was able to chew, but what he does accomplish is a hell of lot more valuable than the idiotic, childish, boring potboilers of Turtledove. I'd probably prefer to give this one 3.5 stars, but I'll round up because of effort.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable to a Point
Review: It was with some trepidation that I picked up a copy of this lengthy tome and took it home. As with any book of this size, I knew I was committing myself to a significant investment of time. But in this case, I also knew that I was taking a risk because I had once tried to read Robinson's first Mars novel, and was unable to complete the task. So, it was with a certain amount of surprise that I found myself quickly devouring the first half of The Years of Rice and Salt. The author approaches his idea of a world history without Europe from a unique angle, not just writing the story of a an Earth dominated by Chinese and Muslims, but crafting a history that is written entirely through the philosophical and cultural eyes of these people. He succeeds in illustrating that without the people of Europe, not only would events have unfolded very differently, but the way history itself would be viewed by later generations would be drastically altered. What I enjoyed most in this novel were the characters and the stories of their repeated interactions over the span of history. Robinson does a good job of making these people believable and interesting, and the tales he tells find them in a myriad of roles, places and situations. And because he weaves reincarnation throughout this novel, Robinson was able to surprise me with the outcomes of some of his tales, not being restricted to keeping his major characters "alive". Where this book falls down is when Robinson allows himself to wander away from his tales and into philosiphizing and ruminating over the nature of history. As the book progresses, this becomes ever more frequent, and in the latter third of the book, I found the going pretty slow. I understand that he was trying to do more than tell the story of this alternate Earth - he wanted to make some insightful points about the nature of history itself and the role we each play in it. Be that as it may, I think that The Years of Rice and Salt would be a shorter, and more importantly better, novel if it contained fewer of these thought-provoking and sleep-inducing passages. All in all, I enjoyed this book a great deal, and would recommend it to someone with the right temperment. If you enjoy fast-paced action, give it a pass. If you want interesting characters and stories and can take a healthy dose of rumination on the nature of history, perhaps you'll like it.
Rating: 
Summary: Great imaginative read!
Review: The Years of Rice and Salt is a tremendous undertaking, and if Kim Robinson does not take it as far as it can go, so what? This is still a wonderful novel of alternative history. Covering a thousand years of such unconventional history is ambitious and makes the novel work. The story centers on a few souls (who conveniently always have names beginning with the same letter) wiped out by the plague in Europe. The souls are reborn and many times make the same mistakes from prior lives. Robinson certainly has his opinions on what works in our current civilization and extrapolates these ideas into his overactive imagination. This is an interesting, imaginative book that I found quite pleasurable to read. It can be a lot of fun if you don't take it too seriously. Highly recommended...
Rating:
Summary: Well done! A book that challenges you if you let it.
Review: This is a compelling "What If..." novel. Kim Stanley Robinson covers over 700 years of an alternate history dominated by the Chinese and Islam. The novel is made up of a number of short stories at various points in time dating from the Great European Plague to modern times and beyond. Using a simple naming convention, the lives of the characters are somewhat easily connected by the reader from story to story, as they are reincarnated, and we follow their journey through the "bardo" into future lives on Earth. Kim Stanley Robinson draws the reader into the epoch by using the writing style of the era or culture. The interludes in the bardo are humorous while also thought provoking as the characters attempt to understand their lives just ended and set goals for the ones to come. Indeed Buddhist philosophy and reincarnation feature prominently in these stories, and are a counterbalance in some sense to the extremism of Islamic beliefs, although Robinson goes to lengths to show that pure Islamic tenants are not in tune with the bastardizations wrought upon it by the religious zealots. Scientific advances and discoveries progress at a different pace in this alternate history, and references are made to many familiar technologies, but what is not mentioned is also as telling. As a hard science writer I suspect Robinson especially enjoyed brainstorming in this area. Certainly Islamic cultures that dominate Robinson's world are less curious than Western civilizations have been, and this has a profound impact on the path of history, and provides the Chinese with an edge enhanced by their great numbers. Robinson also introduces us to other cultures and people that emerge as primary players in the new world order he creates. We see how Indian and native American cultures evolve and influence the political and scientific balance. Certainly Robinson has his own thoughts about these things, and a liking for utopian societies and Buddhism, yet he is not heavy handed with his views, and allows for the reader to formulate his or her own. All in all, this is an ambitious undertaking and one that is very well done and researched. Those familiar with Robinson's past novels will find much that is familiar, while he tells a story that goes in directions he has not ventured before. Those new to Robinson will hopefully also look to discover more from one of the best writers in Science Fiction today.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing Novel
Review: Although I really enjoy KSR's work, The Years of Rice and Salt just didn't do it for me. It is a brilliant idea, but the follow-through was poor at best. The world that Robinson creates ends up basically the same as our own world instead of the drastic alternate past/future novel he could have made, it's as though everything is inevitable and merely channeled through different inventors/rulers/politicos. I guess if that's the message of the novel then it's good, but I was hoping for something with more imagination.
Rating:
Summary: The Robinson Touch
Review: Remember the Mars Trilogy? Superb science fiction book, but with a bit of a difference - there was a lot more social interaction than in your average hard core SF novel. Not character interaction, but the interaction of the different philosophies. It made the book. This book has the same sort of Robinson twist. On the face of it, it is a book dealing with the premise that the Black Death had been a bit more deadly, wiping out Europeans and leaving the world to the Chinese, the Indians and the Arabs, and a few other odds and sods. Robinson's twist is that the major characters keep on returning every hundred years or so, being reincarnated higher or lower according to their previous lives. This gives a sense of continuity to the grand thousand year epic from Middle Ages to modern times. Some might find a little more philosophy than they like, but those who enjoyed his Mars books will probably like this one too, as there is about the same amount. It also gives the thoughtful reader something to chew on while progressing through the otherwise straightforward tale. I enjoyed it, and kept reading to find out what would happen next incarnation. A bit of a quirky classic.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent novel, but not for the alternate-history set
Review: I really enjoyed this novel, which starts with an alternate history setting but combines it with strong characters and an interesting exploration of Buddhist and Isalmic metaphysics / theology. Because of the structure of the novel (taking place across 500+ years) it may take a few chapters to figure out exactly what the real premise is -- the impression you'll get on the back is of a standard alternate history novel, and this is not the sort of political/military novel that say, Harry Turtledove writes. It is still likely to appeal to most alt.hist readers -- the exception being hardcore military-fiction fans, as the action in the novel isn't of the "big battles sort." And it's sufficiently conceptual and character driven that it will very likely appeal to sci-fi fans who aren't alternate history readers. I hadn't read any other books by Kim Stanley Robinson, but this one convinced me to pick up Red Mars.
Rating:
Summary: Great idea, poor execution
Review: Being a stubborn Taurean, I almost never give up on a book, no matter how it may fail to match my mood or expectations. So, it is a rare thing for me to report that I couldn't finish Kim Stanley Robinson's THE YEARS OF RICE AND SALT. Why not? Although premised on the fascinating possibilities of alternative history -- a world in which "the West" quite simply doesn't exist, having been wiped out by the Black Death of the 14th century -- the novel is ultimately predictable and boring. I love historical fiction -- or rather, the idea of historical fiction. Few writers can pull it off. My favorites in the genre are Robert Graves's Claudius books and Marguerite Yourcenar's MEMOIRS OF HADRIAN. Keeping in mind that this is mass-market fiction, my expectations were low. It's not that I can't appreciate a little pulp fiction (I've been known to curl up warmly with the likes of Anne Rice, who has a great historical imagination), or that Robinson hasn't done his research (the novel is quite impressive in historical detail). The problem is that Robinson lacks the imagination to create a truly "other" world. It for this reason that the earliest chapters of the book are the most successful. Here, Robinson doesn't have to imagine, he can simply insert his characters into the more or less fully developed worlds of medieval China and the dar-al-Islam (comprising Turkey, the Middle East, and central and southeast Asia -- plus the fictional Muslim Europe, which is never fully developed). One can even bear with the predictable way he handles the near simultaneous discovery of the Americas from the "East" and the "West", which draws on recent notorious claims that the Chinese might have visited the Pacific coast of North and South America during the Middle Ages and possibly have influenced the cultures there. The novel really loses steam, however, when key historical figures and events from actual Western history turn up in not-so-subtle Eastern guises. The Scientific Revolution is transplanted to Samarkand and the Industrial Revolution to India. I quit reading when World War I, complete with trench warfare, broke out between China and the Islamic nations. I do have one soft spot for this novel: Robinson's use of the Buddhist concept of the Bardo. The main characters meet in limbo here after death and are reborn in the same "Jati", meaning that they touch each others' lives in incarnation after incarnation. Also, Robinson's Sufi characters are quite well developed and interesting, and they may serve to introduce some readers to another, less familiar face of Islam.
Rating: 
Summary: More thoughtful than most alternate histories
Review: How would the world be different if 99 percent of Europe had been wiped out by the Black Death? Robinson's answer: It wouldn't. Oh sure, there would be more European mosques, and someone else would get the chance to mistreat Native Americans, but hardly anything else changes. So, caveat emptor when it comes to the major selling point of the book. Still, "The Years of Rice and Salt" is worth a look. Robinson focuses less on the events than the "souls" he follows through the centuries. The central characters -- "K" and "B" -- grow and change over time, and the history becomes a backdrop to their evolution. One minor problem: The characters almost always come back as a world shakers (or attendants to world shakers) and never as pig farmers or Amazon reviewers. That can be forgiven as dramatic license, though I hope this isn't how the universe works. Anyway, these souls like to philosophize, which sometimes slows the book down but often leads to fascinating meditations on ideas like the role of women in Islam. Structurally, the book is written as a "Foundation"-series of vignettes, and some sections, like "The Alchemist," go on far too long, while others, like "Warp and Weft," are far too short. Robinson also takes shortcuts to bring this world roughly up to speed with our own, creating a super-scientist who apparently invents or discovers the scientific method and nearly every advance between 1400 and 1700 in our time. The focus on Islam, China and India means Africa and South America are ignored. And, as stated before, we're left with a world basically similar to our own. This is a problem endemic to the whole alternate history genre: Instead of creating a different past, writers usually take historical events and reshuffle them (e.g. Hitler rises to power in the South instead of Germany in Harry Turtledove's books). There's a thread of inevitability, even pessimism, running throughout these works. Triumphs and catastrophes are inevitable, no matter what ordinary people do. No room for free will; history has a plan already. In any event, this is a thoughtful book, one that often overcomes its flaws when musing on larger themes. Robinson ought to follow it up with a book like "The Martians," which filled in some of the blanks of the Mars trilogy. I'd love to know more about particular areas or movements he didn't have space for.
Rating:
Summary: YOR&S will alternately thrill and annoy you.
Review: ____________________________________________
I'm only about halfway through this, but it's the most impressive
Robinson I've read since, since.... well, ever, I guess. This is AH played
with the net up, and the writing and characterization are just about as
good as it gets. The opening episode -- just after the POD, when the Black
Death exterminated humanity in Europe -- is nightmarish, chilling. (My
WSOD for this virulent a plague lasted until now -- it's almost
vanishingly unlikely that a disease would kill 99+% of its hosts. And if it
did, why would it exterminate Europeans, while leaving Asians and
Africans largely untouched? Bah. But let's grant KSR his One Impossible
Thing -- which, after all, is at least as plausible as time travel -- and move
on.) If you would like a real review [caution: minor SPOILERS], read
Keith Brooke's excellent one: [SF is] "stories about the present, about the
culture in which they are written... a different lens to look through. And
in The Years of Rice and Salt, Kim Stanley Robinson has ground and
polished himself a particularly sharp lens."
[google, as Amazon censored the URL] The novel is structured as a set of linked novellas, dating from the POD
(c. 1400AD) to the present. In this AH, history subsequent to the
megadeath is dominated by the Islamic world and by China.
The breadth and depth of research here is remarkable, even daunting.
For much of it, readers like me will just have to trust the author;
fortunately, Robinson's research record in previous works is excellent.
(His taste in politics and economics, otoh, is eminently debatable -- see
any rasfw KRS/Mars thread.) Keith accurately points out the strong 'shaggy god' element in the
reincarnation scheme.... and the reincarnation sticking-point. The Leonardo sequence, in Samarkand -- very nice. Karen Lofstrom wrote ( at rasfw), in a much-less flattering review: >It was so [very] didactic. I say that even though I tend to like didactic
>novels and I share most of KSR's political and religious convictions. If
>it irritated me, it would bug the hell out of our resident Libertarians
>and Republicans. As a libertarian-leaning Republican, I'm a counter-example to
Karen's theory. And for a calibration-point, I've read just
about all of KSR's fiction, and enjoyed most of it. I'm always
a bit surprised that someone would suppose that readers need
to share the writer's politics (etc) to enjoy their work. This
would be a dull reading program indeed. -----------------------------------
After finishing it, I'm somewhat less enthused -- the second half
brings back the sadly-familiar political speechifying that marred the
Mars books. The sad thing is, just a little sharp editing would have
salvaged these MEGO speeches/essays, some of which have
interesting points & observations. Sigh. Still, it's an impressive book, one that would repay rereading. Part of the fun is, KSR doesn't take himself too seriously. As in the too-fatal
Euro-plague -- he has his characters discuss the problem at a
conference. They throw out some reasonable ideas -- Nicoll's 'take a
bath!' hypothesis among them, and a plague/anthrax double-
whammy, which KSR took from current mass-extinction debates --
and then conclude that they really don't know, and may never
know, why this plague was so fatal. So at least the author is
addressing the weakest point in his 'counter-factual.' As Keith Brooke pointed out, the characters talk about 'counter-
factuals', too -- one reinvents the 'history is just one damn thing
after another' shtick. And KSR gently reminds us that we're reading
a story, a fiction, written apparently by one Old Red Ink, who has
foibles and fallacies of his own. In other words, he's sneaking in the
Gene Wolfe 'unreliable chronicler' business to muddy the waters: ie possible *SPOILER WARNING* the whole reincarnation business that ties the various Rice & Salt
stories together is an invention -- or at least an embroidery -- by Old
Red. Now, this could be viewed as a "we woke, and it was all a
dream" weasel, but I think it's more a reminder that histories are
written by historians, who have the usual "we won!" bias, not to
mention the love of a good story. And of course, here we have a
counter-factual 'history', written by a novelist, read by a wide
assortment of folks who bring there own preconceptions to their
reading.... The usual muddle of Real Life, even in AH. So -- I recommend The Years of Rice and Salt to your attention, with
the caveat that it has the usual KSR strengths and weaknesses, and
so will alternately thrill and annoy you. At least some of the
annoyances will make you think. This is a very good piece of work
by an author who knows where he's headed, and just how to get
there. Now, if only he had had an editor to blue-pencil those damn speeches... Review copyright 2003 by Peter D. Tillman
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