The Years of Rice and Salt

'''Robinson, Kim Stanley. The Years of Rice and Salt.''' NYC/UK: Bantam Books/HarperCollins, 2001. Also available as an audiobook from Blackstone Audio.[ https://www.amazon.com/Years-Rice-Salt/dp/B00XBU1DJ8]0

Alternative history (although arguably a variety of uchronia), covering large portions of actual and fictive Terran history from the western conquests of Timur Lank (variously rendered, including "Tamburlaine") to mid-20th c. in Christian reckoning, ca. 1366 AH (= after the Hijira). The crucial change for a new timeline is that by the time Timur arrives on the eastern edge of Christendom — to "the Moravian Gate" in what is now the Czech Republic — there is no more Christendom, or land of the "Franks," or any significant human population on the western peninsula of the great Eurasian continent.[] The crucial change Robinson introduces is «What if the Black Death of the 14th c. CE killed not a third of Europe's population but pretty much all of it — but had much lower mortality in the rest of the Old World?» Relevant here is that in the world of this novel, the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions occurred not in Europe but in Asia, including India, and Old World technological and scientific development came from their Eastern and — from, say, a Chinese viewpoint — "Middle Western" — origins, without European influence. In terms of technological history, Robinson covers developments from the time of the composite bow among Mongol warriors, and the great Treasure Fleet commanded by Admiral Zheng He of China through much development — largely military in the central chapters of the book — up to largescale electification and the development of atomic physics to where any of the political great powers could build an atomic bomb. Interestingly, the competing cultures of Earth do not develop commercial radio and television, nor do they invent anything like our computer technology. Cf. and contrast the "Silkpunk" novels of Ken Liu, in his DANDELION DYNASTY series, especially the military technology in The Wall of Storms.

RDE, 23/IX/17