The Years of Rice and Salt

Book cover of The Years of Rice and Salt

Book description

With the incomparable vision and breathtaking detail that brought his now-classic Marstrilogy 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....

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Why read it?

2 authors picked The Years of Rice and Salt as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Alison McBain

Author

Complex worldbuilding and the alternate history genre often go hand in hand, and they’re the part I enjoy most when reading reimaginings of our world. This book intertwines history with spirituality and shows how a small set of characters can enact a large change to the universe, which is something that is shown to be both optimistic (if the characters are good) and pessimistic (if the characters are evil/selfish).

It echoes so much of what I believe—that karma is a real force and depends on how it’s released into the world—so I found it refreshing to see these themes echoed…

From Alison's list on reimagine the past and see a strange new future.

Tom Doyle

Author

Robinson’s book is alternate history on the boldest scale, covering hundreds of years after a very dramatic change indeed: around the year 1400, 99% of Europeans have been killed by a double whammy of plagues, leaving the rest of the world’s story to go on without them.

Such a saga in other hands might be too far removed from the human, character-driven level to be enjoyable, but Robinson has a clever solution to that problem—reincarnation. The main characters are reborn again and again, for the most part lacking memories of their past lives, but identifiable by the initial letter/sound of…

From Tom's list on alternate/secret histories that blew my mind.

Spoliation

By Ian J. Miller,

Book cover of Spoliation

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What is my book about?

To hide a corporation’s failure to properly service a space ship, Captain Jonas Stryker is prosecuted but saved from imprisonment by a dying man, who hires Stryker to collect asteroids for their mineral content. Stryker soon finds he must stop a shadowy corporate group called The Board, who employ space piracy, terrorism, and even weaponised asteroids to overthrow the Federation government.

Set in Lagrange points, space stations, the Moon and outback Australia, it is a fast-moving story with some speculative future technology. If you were interested in the NASA attempt to alter the orbit of the asteroid Dimorphos, you might…

Spoliation

By Ian J. Miller,

What is this book about?

When a trial to cover-up a corporate failure ends Captain Jonas Stryker's career, he wants revenge against The Board, a ruthless, shadowy organization with limitless funds that employs space piracy, terrorism, and even weaponised asteroids. Posing as a space miner, Stryker learns that The Board wants him killed, while a young female SCIB police agent wants retribution against him for having her career spoiled at his trial. As Stryker avoids attempts to kill him, he becomes the only chance to prevent The Board from overturning the Federation Government and imposing a Fascist-style rule.
A story of greed, corruption and honour,…

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