Presence of Arabic and Chinese civilisations, expanding across the planet and finding $other cultures. Shakespeare, Hitler and a million others. This bookĬould have been a rather tedious meditation on the absence of da Vinci, Not dependent on our branch of history for its survival. Pitfalls of alternate history, growing his work from a common root but Through this, he has successfully avoided many of the The production of this book, giving the world he creates a lived in and Robinson hasĪpplied his usual detailed research and rich, convincing narrative to The Black Death has wiped out the population of Europe, leaving theįuture open to the trans-Asian cultures of the Old World. The dawn of what should have been the 14th Christian century. The Years of Rice and Salt is an alternate history, opening at What would the world be like without European influence? Very Work by KSR.' Duncan goes on to review an example of this new work below. In turn, his output has beenĭominated by the success of this work and the continued working out of Massively detailed, Mars trilogy, tracing the colonisation and In theġ990s, he came to dominate science fiction through his massive, and Thematic trilogy offers alternative visions of America's future. Perhaps more usefully re-named Three Californias, this He soon established a reputation for literate scienceįiction, confirmed by the 'Orange County Trilogy' written during theġ980s.

Duncan Lawie writes: 'Kim Stanley Robinson started reading science fiction at the start of theġ970s, as New Wave was breaking over the genre, and began writing it not

The years of rice and salt