The Years of Rice and Salt: A Novel

by Kim Stanley Robinson

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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.
  • ISBN10 0553580078
  • ISBN13 9780553580075
  • Publish Date 3 June 2003 (first published 26 February 2002)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country US
  • Publisher Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc
  • Imprint Spectra