The Years of Rice and Salt - Kim Stanley Robinson

 I really enjoyed Robinson's writing style and thought processes in The Ministry For the Future, and while that one was particularly enjoyable due to his solutions to the climate crisis we are facing (even if I didn't think that they were all realistic in our capitalist world), I wanted to see how he tackled other subjects. 

While this is kinda advertised as a book about the plague, and the synopsis I have seen online say that it is about the Black Death killing 99% of the population instead of a third, the plague really only takes up the first chapter of so of this 700+ page tome, and the (first) main character escapes its ravages and is thrust into the rest of the world - which is still pretty well populated, apparently - pretty quickly. While the plague is referenced throughout the tale, this alternative history really concentrates on various Buddhist, Islamic and Eastern philosophies about reincarnation, and that is really its main theme. 

Apparently, I missed a lot of subtext - possibly because I have been reading this while dealing with an ailing dog - and simply thought that the Eastern religious themes were due to the location, but it is actually because Christianity was basically wiped out with the plague, meaning that the calendars are not Gregorian, technology evolves differently and the world is a much changed from the one that we know.

The 10 or so storylines follow the paths of a group of souls who reincarnate more or less together over the centuries, from the 14th to the 21st, with some coming and going sooner or later, but always influencing each other and, often, the world (or, at least, their section of the world). Their gender changes and there is an instance (I think only one) of one returning as a beast, but the two primary souls always have the same first letter to their name - which, Robinson claims if a reincarnation theory, but he may have made it up. I do believe that he mixes, matches and changes up the philosophies as he goes along, which is certainly his right, especially as this is an alternative history! 

Sometimes the characters remember more than they are supposed to and sometimes there is only a hint, but we see them continuing to work to grow their consciousnesses. We meet them in their bardo - the transitionary place between their lives - as they try to understand their journey and as they rail against the gods.

Certainly interesting concepts throughout and I would love to believe in the idea of reincarnation, but, like the final character, it seems to be something that is more about what you leave behind rather than you actually returning.

Quite the imagination and quite the writer - I'm sure I will explore more of Robinson's work!