I am currently reading “Years of Rice and Salt” for some reason… I really like this book, has anyone else read it?
the general plot is “what if the black death wiped out all of Europe?” and it covers the 700 years after it.
I like the book… because it feels… plausable. like it IS what could happen.
America discovered from the west by japanese fleeing from chinese ocupation. china becomeing the world super power.
a world war faught between muslum countrys and buddist countrys (with lots of underlying political stuff starting it beyond just religious stuff)
the thing I like most… is the progression of technology. I can imagin that without europe, china would have become more powerful than it is, and I am very sure that they would have progressed on gun technology much faster and earlyer than it really was… and from that a more rapid progression of metal working.
anyone else read this book? any comments on it? I am hardly knowlageable on history, and mabey its all totally unreasonable, but to my brain, it seems dead on what WOULD have happened. (although it seems like the compress things so one person does a ton of stuff… that likely really would have been done by many people, but that makes better storytelling I guess)
man… I like this book so much, I just want to hear some discussion on it, its such an interesting thing to think about.
I read it a few months ago, and I tried starting a few threads about it…they didn’t take…so it’s great to hear someone else liked it as much as I did!!!
One of the things I liked best was the constant reincarnation of the main characters. Keeps ya guessin’ who is who.
Robinson has definitely done his homework about Muslim and Eastern religions. I love alternate history anyway. Imagine, technology and democracy being brought to the world by India instead of by America! (oops, didn’t spoil it for ya did I?)
The scenes of the California flood ring true.
If you can figure out the very last line of the book, tell me.
I have read it about halfway (I was still working on the very long part in the middle where the Sufi alchemists in Samarkand are busy discovering physics, when I had to return it to the library). I’ve got to get back to it and finish it.
I think it totally rocked. On the deep level, it had a frame story, like so many of the eastern story collections whose spirit it wants to evoke. By reincarnating the same characters again and again, it worked like the Jataka tales of Buddhism, thereby organically linking it with the Buddhist worldview that informs so much of its development. I like the way Robinson has a good strong feel for Sufism and its contribution to civilization (he wrote a little of that into Red Mars too, but here he was more accurate with it).
I have seen “what if” historical fiction before, but never anything as ambitious as this, rewriting the whole story of civilization. It’s a great workout for the imaginative side of the intellect, and anyone who likes world civilization studies should definitely check it out. Any project this ambitious is bound to fall short in places, but you gotta hand it to Robinson, this was one bold go.
Same here. I must have spent three hours going back over the book, convinced that it had to do with an earlier part of the book, but I found nothing. If anyone knows, or if they personally know KSR, please post enlightment…
What an amazing coincidence! I just finished reading the book last week, and I thought it was great! I was able to follow most of it, and I think it incredible how human society could have been completely change had the plague wiped out Europe.
A few things:
it seems to me that the “lectern” used towards the end was a computer. Then again it may be something diefferent entirely. I was actually looking forward to seeing how computer technology would have come about.
Corporations seem to not exist, at least not in the sense that we know them. It seems like government has a much greater role in fostering innovation and economic development.
Mass media seems not to have developed to the extent that we have it now, which must be due in part to corporations being non-existent. I would still have liked to have seen what the mass media of this society would have looked like.
Towards the end of the book, it would seem that there is no real world leader. China, the Travancori League, and the Hodenosaunee League seems to be at forefront, with the Firanjic states still struggling with food shortages.
I loved this book! I’ve been recommending it to anyone who will listen. I’ve taken a couple of courses on Asian philosophy and history, and you can really tell that Robinson did his homework. It’s one of the most engaging and thought-provoking books I’ve read in a long time.
My favorite parts were the first section where all of the characters first encounter each other and the section set in Nsura. I also really liked how Robinson adjusted his writing style for each of the sections. I do have to say, though, that I think he’s a bit optimistic. People discovering how to make atomic weapons and then not doing it? I’d love it if I thought that were feasible, but I just don’t. Chalk it up to the cynic in me.
Most of the complaints that I’ve heard are that that the book is too cerebral and that “it’s not like Harry Turtledove.” :rolleyes:
can someone give me a timeline of the book? I had a hard time keeping track. I mean, in the calender we use.
as far as I could tell, everything was about 100 years ahead of our time. so america was discovered at around 1350 and the nuclear bomb was invented in 1850 or so.
or am I totally wrong? I had a hard time with that, since compareing it to our world was not the point of the book. but just had a general sense that everything was happening earlyer than it did for us. am I right?
my other question, the shells they were useing in the long war, that shot into space… did they mean that litterally? they went 200 li right? how far is a li?