As I said Monday, I finally finished the book I was reading. I have always been interested in history both what actually happened and the theoretical, "what if" kind. The Years if Rice and Salt falls into the later category.
The premise of the book is how would history have changed if the plague that ravaged Europe in the mid 14th century had killed 95% of the population instead of the smaller, yet still staggering, 33% that actually died. With European civilization in ruins and all but extinct what cultures would dominate the world and effect the course of history. It is an interesting question that Kim Stanley Robinson addresses by telling the stories of a number of people spanning almost 2000 years.
While Robinson is most definitely not a historian the book does seem to bring many of the widely accepted theories into play and concludes European culture and civilization destroyed the world would be dominated by the Islamic world and by the Bhuddist/Chinese world. Later in this history other players on the world stage would come from the Indian subcontinent, the Native American civilization, and the Incan Empire in South America. It is interesting to note that the Native American population suffers the same decimation from diseases brought from the Old World as they did in the European dominated history we live in.
The unifying premise of all the stories told across the entire alternate history is the reincarnation of charecters from early stories in the book as characters in later portions as well as some exposure to the interaction between these souls in the "bardo" while they await judgement by the gods and being sent back to earth in their next form.
I am not a believer in reincarnation and I felt like too much time was devoted to the discussion of it. However, it did not detract from the overall ability of the book to hold my interest. The reincarnation discussion was most prevelant in the early chapters and became less frequent as the book went on. I suspect that this may have contributed to the difficulty I had getting through the first few chapters. What also made it easier after the initial chapters was the familiarity with a new history and orientation of the world.
All in all it was an enjoyable and thought provoking book. Be warned, however, it is not a light read and definitely not a book that can be read without concentration. Unless the reader makes an effort to grasp the orientation and history of this alternative world it can be difficult to follow. It is also not a book to be read if you don't want to be rocked back on your heels every once in a while, even hours after putting it down, by the thoughts of how the change of a single fact can alter the course of the history fo the world.
When all is said and done I would give it a 4 star rating with the proviso that readers that don't want to think or that can't approach history with an open and inquisitive mind should just move along to something else.
