A review by dyingotters
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson

4.0

I’ve never been interested in alternative history but this book was an enjoyable experience. We see the lives of slaves, revolutionaries, great scientists and philosophers all making history. The structures and themes of the book reflects the Chinese-dominant state of this alternative world, with stories sectioned into “books” and the idea of characters reincarnating over and over again to meet with the same groups of people in their past lives. And although we read about intellectuals questioning and deciphering their reality, whether or not Buddhism and reincarnations is real, it all goes back to love and connection. Maybe that is what history, and by proximity, existence, is about.