The Years of Rice and Salt
Read The Years of Rice and Salt Online
Authors: Kim Stanley Robinson
PRAISE FOR KIM STANLEY ROBINSON'S
THE YEARS OF RICE AND SALT
“The first great science fiction novel of the 21st century . . . Presciently written well before the so-called war on terrorism,
The Years of Rice and Salt
has much to teach a post-Sept. 11 America—about Islam and history, but also about the ethics that might allow us to survive the contradictions created by our technology. . . . There's entertainment and even comfort in
The Years of Rice and Salt,
but this is not a work of art that flatters its readers or offers them an easy escape from reality. It asks each of us to challenge exploitation and injustice, to question what we believe and the way we live.” —
San Francisco Bay Guardian
“
The Years of Rice and Salt
is Robinson's richest, most subtle and moving novel, a meditation on history and humanism that abjures easy answers and ends up (unlike most alternate histories) knowing more than it tells.”
—
The Washington Post Book World
“Kim Stanley Robinson rewrites modern history with a sweeping dash across the centuries, [developing] a rich view of history and human nature in a novel that reaches a new level of ambition and achievement for the alternate history genre.” —
The Denver Post
“[Robinson] excels at both alternate history and large-scale world building. . . . [He] treats every culture with respect, never stooping to stereotypes, [and] displays an impressively deep understanding of science and philosophy. . . . Robinson could well be considered the James Michener of alternate history. He's a subtler, more nuanced writer than the author of
Hawaii,
but he knows how to build a compelling story from the clash of cultures, ideas and environments. Like
Antarctica, The Years of Rice and Salt
has the kind of historical breadth and thematic depth that can attract a wider readership than normal for a work of science fiction.”
—
San Francisco Chronicle
“One of the best and most unusual of science fiction's burgeoning subgenre of alternate history . . . weaves a fascinating and unique world history. . . . By taking Europe and, by extension, the United States out of the picture, Robinson points out without preaching that the history of the world has always been far more than just the parochial history of our own small part of the globe.” —
The Orlando Sentinel
“The year's big award winner may already be on the shelves. . . . [Robinson's] characters bring up deep thoughts on religion and philosophy, as well as having quite a batch of pretty neat stories spread along the length of this very high-concept novel. . . . Truly a great book.”
—
The San Diego Union-Tribune
“What's most remarkable about
The Years of Rice and Salt
is the way it hews so closely to the lineaments of the human heart even as it fans out across such a mammoth stage. . . . A magnificent and endlessly fascinating book . . . There is also something uncannily prescient about the novel's deep, subtle examinations of the divided nature of Islam. . . . It is a novel in which chance and human nature intertwine in countless ways, producing an alternate history that provocatively intersects with and departs from our own. It offers a vision of the world in which what shapes our fate, in the end, are the raw materials of humanity—our brutality and selfishness, yes, but also our curiosity, our capacity for sympathy and our stubborn persistence in muddling our way to a better life.” —Salon.com
“Every so often, by some untraceable synchronicity, an author's latest or current work flows like a clear river into the tides of history. . . . Prodigious, literary and challenging . . . Seamlessly weaves all the necessary detail with vivid action . . . deeply
‘realistic,' yet richer and more thoughtful than the seeming endless parade of navel-gazing that passes as ‘literary realism' these days.” —
Boulder Daily Camera
“A novel of ideas of the best sort, filled to overflowing with philosophy, theology and scientific theory.”
—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
“Robinson's most ambitious effort at alternate history . . . refracted by the ensorcelled lens of a wizard with a doctorate in history and a wicked sense of humor . . . Brilliantly conceived . . . this book will probably place high on the list of Robinson's best work.” —
Booklist
“Superb . . . Robinson explores how history actually happens. . . . Rarely has a novel seemed so timely. . . .
The Years of Rice and Salt
gives us what might have been, but, instead of looking backwards, it faces forward and asks, what
might we all be?” —BookPage.com
“[Robinson] is a writer of extraordinary brilliance, and there is more than enough of that on display here to qualify
The Years of Rice and Salt
as one of the year's most
important books.” —
Locus
(Gary K. Wolfe)
“A richly detailed, provocative philosophical consideration of the mechanisms of history . . . Funny, shocking, moving and surprising . . . One of the most intelligent and timely novels in the history of the field . . .
The Years of Rice and Salt
is the kind of major novel that most writers produce once in a lifetime. It is fascinating, erudite, and humane. . . . It is also the finest work of utopian fiction in the history of science fiction produced by its finest utopian writer.”
—
Locus
(Jonathan Strahan)
“Huge, vivid . . . an opulent, teeming festival of the exotic . . . Robinson has become SF's supreme interpreter of history [and]
The Years of Rice and Salt
is one of SF's major intellectual masterpieces.” —
Locus
(Nick Gevers)
“Humane, romantic, implacable, luminous, engaging, lovable, wise, mature, savvy.” —SciFi.com
“[
The Years of Rice and Salt
] may well become one of SF's key
texts. . . . SF gives us another way of looking at the present, a different lens to look through. And in
The Years of Rice and Salt,
Kim Stanley Robinson has ground and polished himself a particularly sharp lens.” —Infinity Plus
“Multilayered, full of ideas, revealing more and more with multiple readings, it's a book that will be assigned in classes and read and enjoyed by science fiction fans for years. Spanning nearly seven hundred years, this alternate history is a prolonged meditation on social change, the impact of science on society, and religion's place in modern life. It's about books and why we read them, tales and how we
learn.” —StrangeHorizons.com
“Kim Stanley Robinson's
The Years of Rice and Salt
is a storehouse of thought. It is a dense, informed, impassioned and huge novel by an author who is a comprehensive and insatiable thinker. . . . It is not just a book which invents a history: it is a book
about
history and how it is fashioned. . . . Robinson has created a unique kind of fiction, one that erases the line between fiction and the world. . . .
The Years of Rice and Salt
engages the world directly and intensely. In so doing, it invites the reader to do the same. There is little more I would ask of a book.” —JanuaryMagazine.com
RED MARS
WINNER OF THE NEBULA AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
“A tremendous achievement.”
—
The Washington Post Book World
“An absorbing novel . . . a scientifically informed imagination of rare ambition at work.”
—
The New York Times Book Review
“Promises to become a classic. . . . This is epic science fiction in the best sense of the term—thoughtful, provoking, and haunting.” —
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
GREEN MARS
WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
“Dense as a diamond and as sharp; it makes even most good novels seem pale and insignificant by comparison.”
—
The Washington Post Book World
“Has the breathtaking scope, plausible science and intellectual daring that made
Red Mars
a hit.”
—
Daily News of Los Angeles
BLUE MARS
WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
“If I had to choose one writer whose work will set the standard for science fiction in the future, it would be Kim Stanley Robinson.
Blue Mars
represents a breakthrough even from his own consistently high level of achievement. . . . Beautifully written . . . a landmark in the history of the genre.”
—
The New York Times Book Review
“A complex and deeply engaging dramatization of humanity's future . . . exhilarating.”
—
The Philadelphia Inquirer
ANTARCTICA
“It's rare that a novelist coming off one masterwork can so soon produce another, but
Antarctica
may well be the best novel of the best ecological novelist around.”
—
Locus
“Passionate, informed . . . vastly entertaining.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
“Compelling characters . . . a rich and dense
story . . .
Antarctica
—both the book and the continent—will become part of the reader's interior landscape.”
—
The Washington Post Book World
“A gripping tale of adventure on the ice.”
—
Publishers Weekly
BOOKS BY KIM STANLEY ROBINSON
FICTION
The Mars Trilogy
Red Mars
Green Mars
Blue Mars
The California Trilogy
The Wild Shore
The Gold Coast
Pacific Edge
Escape from Kathmandu
A Short Sharp Shock
Green Mars
(novella)
The Blind Geometer
The Memory of Whiteness
Icehenge
The Planet on the Table
Remaking History
Antarctica
The Martians
NONFICTION
The Novels of Philip K. Dick
THE
YEARS
OF
RICE
AND
SALT
KIM STANLEY ROBINSON
BANTAM BOOKS
