The Years of Rice and Salt
Kim Stanley Robinson
Language: English
Pages: 784
ISBN: 0553580078
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
With the incomparable vision and breathtaking detail that brought his now-classic Mars trilogy to vivid life, bestselling author KIM STANLEY ROBINSON boldly imagines an alternate history of the last seven hundred years. In his grandest work yet, the acclaimed storyteller constructs a world vastly different from the one we know....
The Years of Rice and Salt
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.
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.
From the Hardcover edition.
The Triumph of Modernism: India's Artists and the Avant-garde, 1922-47
Sweating Saris: Indian Dance As Transnational Labor
India At War: The Subcontinent and the Second World War
Daughters of the Red Light: Coming of Age in Mumbai's Brothels
Blindly with complete assurance, so well had he come to know this building, the first one he had ever lived in. He liked it. Kyu led him into the kitchen, took a branch sticking out of the smoldering stove fire; he must have put it in before rousing Bold, for the pitchy knot at the end was now blazing. “We're going north to the capital,” Kyu said over his shoulder as he led Bold outdoors. “I'm going to kill the emperor.” “What!” “More about that later,” Kyu said, and applied the flaming torch.
Day of spring, Day One of Year 87, a festival day, first morning of this life, first year of this world; and Bao got up early with Gao and went out with some others, to hide colored eggs and wrapped candy in the grass of the lawn and meadow, and on the streambank. This was the ritual in their ring of cottages; every New Year's Day the adults would go out and hide eggs that had been colored the day before, and candy wrapped in vibrantly colored metallic wrapping, and at the appointed hour of the.
No doubt. Al-Andalus is a dangerous place for people like these. The sultan's brother is proving a very strict caliph, I have heard, almost Almohad in his purity. The form of Islam he enforces is so pure that I don't believe it was ever lived before, even in the time of the Prophet. No, this caravan is made of people on the run. And so was ours.” “Sanctuary,” Bistami said. “That's what the Christians called a place of protection. Usually their churches, or else a royal court. Like some of the.
Or spears or any other weapons. Something in the look of these people suggested the possibility of an ambush. Nothing of the sort happened. In fact, the next day when they rowed in, a whole contingent of men, wearing checked tunics and feathered headresses, prostrated themselves on the beach. Uneasily Kheim ordered a landing, on the lookout for trouble. All went well. Communication by gesture, and quick basic language lessons, was fair, although the locals seemed to take Butterfly to be the.
Little green leaves to chew; though these last were handed to them by the executioner god. They started up the side of the volcano while it was still a gray snow slope under a white dawn sky. The ocean to the west was covered by clouds, but they were breaking up, and the great blue plate lay there far, far below, looking to Kheim like his home village or his childhood. It got colder as they ascended, and hard to walk. The snow was brittle underfoot, and icy bits of it clinked and glittered. It.