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The Years of Rice and Salt

kim stanley robinson

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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? What if the plague killed 99 percent of the population instead? How would the world have changed? This is a look at the history that could have been: a history that stretches across centuries, a history that sees dynasties and nations rise and crumble, a history that spans horrible famine and magnificent innovation. These are the years of rice and salt.

763 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 3,2002
Literary awards
hugo award, locus award, arthur c. clarke award, 

This edition

Format
763 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published
June 3, 2003 by Bantam Books
ISBN
9780553580075
ASIN
0553580078
Language
English

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About the author

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kim stanley robinson

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Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer. He has published 22 novels and numerous short stories and is best known for his Mars trilogy. His work has been translated into 24 languages. Many of his novels and stories have ecological, cultural, and political themes and feature scientists as heroes. Robinson has won numerous awards, including the Hugo Award for Best Novel, the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the World Fantasy Award. The Atlantic has called Robinson's work "the gold standard of realistic, and highly literary, science-fiction writing." According to an article in The New Yorker, Robinson is "generally acknowledged as one of the greatest living science-fiction writers."

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Community Reviews

Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 99 votes)
5 stars
27(27%)
4 stars
34(34%)
3 stars
38(38%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
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99 reviews All reviews
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Ultraman_9823
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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-La reencarnación existe, la historia la hacen los vencedores y en todas partes cuecen habas (y las queman, incluso)-.

Género. Narrativa Fantástica.

Lo que nos cuenta. La peste negra arrasa Europa. China y el Islam comienzan a competir por la supremacía. Mediante las vivencias de los personaje reencarnados vemos la evolución de ambas culturas y sus choques a lo largo de siete siglos, sin presencia de humanismo cristiano ni cristianismo.

¿Quiere usted saber más del libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

hhttp://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/2013/01/tiempos-de-arroz-y-sal.html
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im_feelingstuck
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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It’s a cultural roller-coaster: “In a cool storage building they went into a room filled with sealed porcelain and glass jars, and found a black penis for Kyu to take with him” (p. 67). That said, and although it seems like a good book, I DNF at 100 pages. It is just not for me, at least not right now. It’s less about a plague or apocalypse, than about culture and religion. There is reincarnation, “karmic jati,” and a quest for “buddha wisdom.” There are odd scenes in the afterlife (in Bordo), with judgment by a white god and black demon. And Robinson defines colic in babies as a battle between souls. I just couldn't get into all of that. Other than that, my only gripe is that Robinson ends every chapter in an irritating way: “but to find out more, you can read the next chapter” (p. 24); “but no doubt the next chapter will tell us” (p. 54). Come on. For real?

Based on the 100 pages I read, here are the ratings I would give:

1) Story (3/5)
2) Writing (3/5)
3) Originality (5/5)
4) Characters (4/5)
5) Set pieces (5/5)
6) Suspense (2/5)
7) Ending (-)
8) Relationships (romantic or otherwise) (4/5)
9) Dialogue (3/5)
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killerzak23
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This book is so unusual--not sure I've ever read a novel with this much reincarnation. :) At first I thought it was just K and B and I was keeping a list of their names in each new life...then I realized OH it's the I characters as well. Oh and the Ps.... WAIT A SECOND. Ha. Took a while to realize it was the whole jita / bardo / what have you.

But there were points when it became a bit of a slog. Or days when I found I didn't read, because this is what I was reading and I didn't feel like reading it. Some sections were more engaging than others-- I particularly loved the Nsara section (second from the end) and the last section as well.

He's wrestling with some really big ideas here --not just reincarnation-- and while I don't think it's always obvious what's happened in this alternate history, it's always interesting.

What causes well-fed and secure people to work for the subjugation and immiseration of starving insecure people? What, indeed.
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TheRealPepsi
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Hmm. I liked the Mars trilogy and had high hopes for this one but couldn't get more than 3/4 of the way through. Premise - excellent. Execution - awkward. "What if the Black Death had wiped out 99% of Europe's population instead of only 30-40%?" Whole course of history altered, etc etc. Unfortunately, it was too ambitious and might have worked better at half the scope, with the rest left to the reader's imagination.

Robinson doesn't give you enough time to really get attached to the characters before cranking along to the next episode in history, even though the main players are literal reincarnations of those in the previous one. Maybe I just found the reincarnation thing a little too precious a device.

Admirable project, just a little heavy-handed in parts and too sprawling to really get invested in it.
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Delriver
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Ressenya en català:

http://www.elkraken.com/R-Tiempos_de_...

Reseña en castellano:

http://www.elkraken.com/Esp/R-tiempos...
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JackMayson94_02
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I knew the basic premise going in; what if the black death had killed off 99% of the population of Europe instead of the historical 30%. What I didn't expect was the form it would take in a novel: a series of somewhat interconnected short stories following the reincarnation of various characters through hundreds of years of history. At first I didn't know what one had to do with the other until the novel began to bring up themes of reincarnation as do-over, a chance to try things again in different ways. And isn't that what alternative history as a genre is? In interviews, author Kim Stanley Robinson has said that this book came to him when he tried to find the biggest change that could have happened to history while still leaving history recognizable. Or, he was trying to create an uber-alternative history, thus the meditations on the form within the book.

The world of the novel really got under my skin, its point of view sometimes more likely-seeming than actual history. China discovering the new world? Samarkand initiating the Renaissance? A South Indian ocean-spanning empire in the 1800's? These didn't happen? And that great world-building (as all great sci-fi and alt history novels should have) is probably what is going to stick with me the longest.

The short stories themselves were a mixed bag. Some I loved; the Golden Hoard general, the Chinese Columbus, the Samarkand Renaissance, the modernist stylings of the 60-year World War chapter. Some, not so much; the post-war spy thriller, most of the chapter on the resettling of Europe. And although I liked how the novel ended, I wish there were some way to bring the bardo (afterlife) back in one more time to wrap things up.
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MokkeKat
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Really fascinating book - love the cavalcade of characters, following the same souls through a non-European world. Gets way too philosophical near the end, but justified, but still a great read!
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LanieStyle
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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DNF @15%

That was plenty of time to realize that this book is not going to hold my interest. Disappointed, because the synopsis holds a huge amount of potential!
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