The Years of Rice and Salt, Kim Stanley Robinson
The Years of Rice and Salt, Kim Stanley Robinson
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The Years of Rice and Salt

Author: Kim Stanley Robinson

Narrator: Bronson Pinchot

Unabridged: 25 hr 56 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/05/2015

Synopsis

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? 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.This is a universe where the first ship to reach the New World travels across the Pacific Ocean from China and colonization spreads from west to east. This is a universe where the Industrial Revolution is triggered by the world's greatest scientific minds—in India. This is a universe where Buddhism and Islam are the most influential and practiced religions, and Christianity is merely a historical footnote. Through the eyes of soldiers and kings, explorers and philosophers, slaves and scholars, Robinson renders an immensely rich tapestry. Rewriting history and probing the most profound questions as only he can, Robinson shines his extraordinary light on the place of religion, culture, power, and even love on such an Earth. From the steppes of Asia to the shores of the Western Hemisphere, from the age of Akbar to the present and beyond, here is the stunning story of the creation of a new world.

About Kim Stanley Robinson

Kim Stanley Robinson is a bestselling author and winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. He is the author of more than twenty books, including the bestselling Mars trilogy and the critically acclaimed Forty Signs of Rain, The Years of Rice and Salt, and 2312. In 2008, he was named a “Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine, and he works with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute. For his book Antarctica, he was sent to the Antarctic by the US National Science Foundation as part of their Antarctic Artists and Writers’ Program.

About Bronson Pinchot

Bronson Pinchot, Audible’s Narrator of the Year for 2010, has won Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, AudioFile Earphones Awards, Audible’s Book of the Year Award, and Audie Awards for several audiobooks, including Matterhorn, Wise Blood, Occupied City, and The Learners. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale, he is an Emmy- and People’s Choice-nominated veteran of movies, television, and Broadway and West End shows. His performance of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was named the highlight of the entire two-year Kennedy Center Shakespeare Festival by the Washington Post. He attended the acting programs at Shakespeare & Company and Circle-in-the-Square, logged in well over 200 episodes of television, starred or costarred in a bouquet of films, plays, musicals, and Shakespeare on Broadway and in London, and developed a passion for Greek revival architecture.

Reviews

AudiobooksNow review by Hope on 2007-05-27 11:52:50

This could have been a great book but... the writing style was lacking . after slogging through 300 of the 500+ pages I realized it was not going to suddenly create the magic that keeps me reading. Thats the way of karma , things keep repeating themselves but to read about such tedious lives over and over again was just plain old boring. That with the fact that the author just seemed to end a life when he wrote himself into a hole ... pointless reading. I should have put it down sooner.

Goodreads review by Clouds on May 10, 2019

Christmas 2010: I realised that I had got stuck in a rut. I was re-reading old favourites again and again, waiting for a few trusted authors to release new works. Something had to be done. On the spur of the moment I set myself a challenge, to read every book to have won the Locus Sci-Fi award. That’......more

Goodreads review by Bradley on January 22, 2018

This one's going right in the category of OMG this is epic SF of a very serious nature and scope. It goes well beyond the "normal" subgenre of alternate histories to throw us into a vast and very impressive exploration of China and India as they completely dominate the culture and space of the entire......more

Goodreads review by Saadiq on May 13, 2008

Dear Kim Stanley Robinson, I think your Mars trilogy is one of the greatest pieces of science fiction every written. I've read it twice in the past ten years and will probably read it three more times before I grow old. I even read the first book in your eco-thriller trilogy and, though there's not m......more

Goodreads review by Travis on July 21, 2008

lesson to be learned: just because you like one book (or in this case, three) by a particular author doesn't necessarily have to imply that you will have to like all books. This, my darlings, is a blatant case in point. Thy premise: The black plague knocks out 99 percent of Western Europe - so far,......more

Goodreads review by Kara on September 26, 2009

I dug into The Years of Rice and Salt with much gusto, for its premise was an intriguing example of why alternate history can be so seductive. Yet almost immediately, my expectations were completely torn apart and shoved in my face. Sometimes this can be good; other times it ruins a book completely.......more

Quotes

“A thoughtful and powerful examination of cultures and the people who shape them…The credible alternate history that Robinson constructs becomes the framework for a tapestry of ideas about philosophy, science, theology, and politics.” Amazon.com

“[A] highly realistic and credible alternate history…[Robinson] has created a novel of ideas of the best sort, filled to overflowing with philosophy, theology, and scientific theory.” Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“An addictive, surprising, and suspenseful novel about characters and a world whose fate comes to matter considerably to readers.” Library Journal

“This vast, magisterial novel is Robinson’s most ambitious effort at alternate history, a work on a scale as large as Harry Turtledove employs…Brilliantly conceived.” Booklist

“Hugo winner Robinson follows three characters over seven centuries on an alternate Earth in which Islam and Buddhism are the dominant religions…Blessed with moments of wry and gentle beauty as friends and antagonists rediscover each other under different guises in exotically dangerous locales.” Kirkus Reviews

Awards

  • BookRiot Pick
  • Hugo Award
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