You probably already know that The Years of Rice and Salt, by Kim Stanley Robinson tells an alternate history where the Black Plague wiped out Christian Europe, which leaves a world dominated by Buddhists and Muslims. This gives you a good excuse to explore parts of world history we don’t hear so much about. As the generations pass, other wanderers are added to the “lost Christians”: Jews, Armenians, and Zott (Roma). And as the generations pass, we see the same characters reborn: the Mystic, the Fighter, the Intellectual, and the Selfish jerk who makes trouble for the first three. There’s a couple other recurring characters, but so minor, I often missed them. After a few chapters you come to expect that just when they’re about to really make a difference, a natural disaster will kill them off. And then they regroup in the bardo.
Here, the bardo is an afterlife that the dead mustpass through, be judged, and sent to the next lives. The nature of the bardo changes–sometimes Mohammed sits in judgment, sometimes the biggest, baddest Chinese bureaucracy ever–but even unbelievers pass through it. The Fighter rebels in protest over the whole system. Nor does he cut the Mystic any slack:
“I’m sick of love and happiness–I want justice.”
When they take counsel together, they do a little better in the next lives. Still, much of the same kind of history happens, just with different actors. A couple of the biggest differences are made through the extraordinary (verging on unbelievable) efforts of particular heroes. The most progress comes when the Fighter is in charge, refusing to accept the world as it is.
I like how the book comments on itself, toward the end, discussing various ideas of reincarnation and various theories of history. For instance, are we reading about the same people being reborn and making critical contributions to world history in each life, or just the same kinds of people?And while things do get better, I’m not sure whether the ending is a moment of hope or a promise of more of the same.