The Years of Rice and Salt

Rating:
Summary: Excellent AltHistory
Review: I'd been warned against this book by some reviews/impressions in the alternate history newsgroups. I'm glad I didn't pay too much attention to them. This IS a difficult book to read--you want to know much more about the different philosophies and social movements going on in this world. And many times I stopped to wonder "what year would this have been in my world?" But all in all, an excellent book. I think the best thing and author can do is, after giving you a good read, make you want to research further the philosophies and social structures he uses to create his world in the book. I've had to keep a notepad with the book to jot down reminders to myself to look for more information on Islamic society, Buddhist philosophy, the Chinese imperial system, etc.

Rating:
Summary: absorbing, haunting, yet shallow
Review: I am a sucker for alternate histories -- be it (fairly) serious literature like Dick's "Man in the High Castle", silly stuff like Stephen Fry's "Making History" or potboilers like Vaterland. When I read the Salon review of "Years of Rice and Salt", I knew this was a book for me, and I was not too disappointed.

This is an extremely thoughtful, haunting and often poetic view of an alternate world in which the population of Europe was completely killed off by the plague in the 13th century. Europe develops as a culturally stagnant, technologically backward group of Islamic states, earliest in the shadow of more vibrant Islamic societies to the East, and later in the shadow of technologically advanced India and militarily united China. China colonizes most of the New World, with Islam grabbing the eastern regions of North America. The world that develops is familiar in two ways -- first, history overall follows reasonably predictable lines, and second, the particular cultures that survive the plague develop more or less as one would expect from their counterparts in the world we actually live in.

Robinson makes the inspired decision to tell a small-scale human story as well, using the device of reincarnation to allow variants of the same three or four characters (identifiable by their initials) to sort of span 700 years. It's very sweet to see the characters lead different lives, sometimes male, sometimes female, not always human -- always friends or lovers, always engaged in versions of the same struggles and conflicts. Eventually, we figure out that it's the weakest of the central characters that is the focus of the book.

The problem with the book is its ultimate shallowness. The characters are archetypes -- a figure of struggle (initial K), a figure of thought (initial I), a servant/follower (initial P) and a figure of human kindness and charity (initial B). We get to like them in part because of the thrill of the chase -- meeting and re-meeting them in different time periods and cultures. "Ah, there's K. I was wondering when he'd/she'd show up!" But if you ask yourself what's really interesting about the characters, besides the way in which they fit (or don't fit) into the different societies in which they live, you realize that you don't actually have an answer to that question. There's just not much to say about the characters in the end. And that's a shame. You almost get the sense that the author became bored with the characters, since apart from the poetical conclusion to the book, the later chapters (starting with the India section) have much less plot than the earlier chapters, and much more preachy, pseudo-scholarly accounts of the history, and of historical theory.

Do read the book. It's pretty good. But mourn for the fact that it could have been deeper and better.

Rating:
Summary: The Emperor's New Clothes
Review: This book appears to be written for eight year olds. The sky was "big." The cloud was "big." The building was "big." It's like The Little Golden Book of Alternate History. The characters are so childishly stated as to be non-existent, and as to Robinson's purportedly brilliant insights into other cultures, you could learn more about the Arabs by holding a bowl of humus and thinking about sand. If one is to believe the forecast reviews, this is one of the great works of our time. Read the sample pages and you'll see that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes. A terrible, almost unreadable book.

Rating:
Summary: An Entertaining and Thought-provoking Masterpiece
Review: This is how good novels can be. Robinson's talent and range are amazing. He is doing some of the best work of any author in any genre in America today. His take on a world that develops without domination by Europe is fascinating, entertaining, and sometimes, disturbing. His insights are not simplistic and predictable. Great book!!

Rating:
Summary: Inadequate
Review: Im sorry but this particular title does not make the cut. It's characterization is not very good, and after reading 70-odd pages I was bored.

Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Book
Review: This book is a wonderful read. I won't go over the plot as someone more qualified then me can do that. The book is fun to read, partially because it is so intricate. It is not only a Chronicle of an alternate history; it follows the spiritual development of core characters throughout these periods (through reincarnation). Like many of Mr. Robinson's books, this one is an exploration of alternate societies; blending a great amount of research in religion, sociology, linguistics, history, science and cultures.
This book along with his Mars Trilogy are definite re-reads for me and I look forward to reading them again.

Rating:
Summary: Umberto Eco meets Harry Turtledove?
Review: Reincarnation as a device to give structure and coherence to a novel covering 700 years of alternative history - certainly not what you expect from Kim Stanley "hard sci-fi" Robinson. Only the description of Islamic colonists in the Mars trilogy or the poetic words of a feng shui master in "Antarctica" would have pointed to this in-depth exploration of a world where the "dead white males" never existed in the first place. I think it works and I enjoyed how the description of the afterlife and the narrative style of the novel itself changes in response to the development of the societies. It could have been a dry history text where all the names and places were unfamiliar and funny-sounding. Instead it's an imaginative author having the courage to go in a different direction. A fine read.

Rating:
Summary: Karma Confusion
Review: I expected a lot more from this book than I received. The premise that sounds so intriguing falls flat for several reasons.
The first is that to truly appreciate alternate histories the reader needs to be familiar with history. The basis of this book is steeped in Eastern history and even more so in religion and philosophy. Without a proper background the reader easily becomes lost.
Second is that the book is actually broken into many smaller sections which do not necessarily flow together. The main characters are two people one a spiritual journey who are reincarnated many times. Keeping track of who they are in the various stories and settings is difficult to say the least.
There are also the intermissions that take place between the stories while the charactors visit a thoroughly confusing afterlife. There they are judged and often cause havoc against what are supposed to be gods.
The lack of decent maps and a detailed historical timeline further the confusion. The maps, few that there are, do not help much as they are too crudely rendered and lack important sites.
The book and it's premise have so much potential but they are wasted. Maybe in the hands of an experienced alternate historian such as Turtledove they would be played to their fullest potential.
I struggled to finish the book and gave serious thought to quitting. Only by the barest of margins was I able to continue.

Rating:
Summary: Strong book, disappointing ending
Review: I thought the book was excellent, particularily the second half. Robinson is a pretty liberal guy, I expected that the Islamic empire would be treated in a very P.C. style (such as, making them very peaceful and kind, with the implication being that Christian Europe forced them to be violent), but that's not what happened. The big war ends up with the Islamic world treated like Nazi germany (experimenting on Jews, Christians...).

The end was kind of disappointing, as there was no big grand finale to the story. I guess thats sort of like history though.

Rating:
Summary: Disjointed and Disappointing
Review: I also found this book to be rather a bore. I like some more history to my alternate history - this was a series of character sketches revolving around Eastern religious themes with just a little history in the background. You have to read between the lines to determine what the "historical" message is in a section. The Widow Kang section was particularly boring - and the book draws its title from this section. After 400 pages it finally got up a little steam in the history department. By the time I finished this book I had a real love-hate relationship with it - A great idea, but not a good book. I could put this book down. It was only determination to finish what I had begun that got me to the end.