The Years of Rice and Salt

<b>WINNER OF THE LOCUS AWARD • The bestselling author of the Mars trilogy boldly reimagines the past seven hundred years in this “exceptional and engrossing” (<i>New York Post</i>) saga, constructing a world vastly different from the one we know. . . <br><br>“A thoughtful, magisterial alternate history from one of science fiction’s most important writers.”—<i>The New York Times Book Review</i></b><br><br>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? <i>The Years of Rice and Salt</i> 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.<br><br>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.