Kim Stanley Robinson - The Years of Rice and Salt

Pros: Strong characterizations, fascinating speculations.
Cons: Gets a little wordy.

Imagine, if you will, that instead of killing two-thirds of the population of Europe, the Black Death had killed 99%. That is the starting point of Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, which traces world history from the fifteenth ...

Pros: A fine alternate history with engaging religious and philosophical content.
Cons: Requires attentive reading -- but it does hold the attention.

Is the title over the top? Perhaps. It's easy to conflate an author's narrative viewpoint with his own ideas. But if Kim Stanley Robinson wasn't trying to write a non-Christian Bible of sorts, he managed to anyway. Although Robinson's Mars ...

Pros: A well crafted alternate history, very clever and intriguing.
Cons: The story becomes convoluted, the world too similar and too familiar to our own.

The Big Question of 'What If': Where it Goes Wrong I've never been a fan of 'alternate his ...

Pros: A complex, thought provoking look at what could have been
Cons: Not a light read Not a short one either

A common misconception is that history is a collection of isolated events. As someone who has studied history, I can tell you that this is the farthest thing from the truth. Everything that happens in this world, whether on a global level, or a personal ...

Pros: Good writing, interesting premise.
Cons: Too long, too unfocused, and too pedantic.

Superficially The Years of Rice and Salt is an alternate history based on the premise that the bubonic plague had wiped out 95% of Europe’s population, instead of 25%. However, it’s soon obvious that history serves only as an excuse for author...