| | |   Review © 2003 T. M. Wagner. Book cover art © 2003 by
Alan Ayers.   As long as I've been an SF and fantasy reader, I
don't think I've read a passage as eloquent and inspirational as
the following: "This is what the human story is, not the
emperors and the generals and their wars, but the nameless
actions of people who are never written down, the good they do
for others passed on like a blessing..."  The Years of Rice and
Salt is a sprawling, sumptuous fantasy novel about civilization,
set against an alternate-historical backdrop of a world in which
the Black Death of the 14th century wiped out almost the entire
European population (in reality it took about half of it). This
has effectively brought Christianity to a halt, allowing Islam
to rise to prominence as the world's major religion, Buddhism
and Hinduism bringing up the rear. Given the political climate
prevalent in the west following 9/11, it's a fascinating and
possibly risky premise for a novel, particularly in light of the
fact that Robinson's