Line #25 Literature/TheYearsOfRiceAndSalt


1	[[quoteright:232:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yoras.jpg]]
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3	''The Years of Rice and Salt'' is a an AlternateHistory novel by writer Creator/KimStanleyRobinson, which depicts world history in an alternate timeline where the Black Plague epidemic that ravaged Europe in the 14th century was even more destructive, and killing 90% of the European population.
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5	With Europe out of the game, the two civilizations that grow into global superpowers in the following centuries are the Islamic world and China. Eventually, their geopolitical rivalry escalates into total war.
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7	The story is told from the perspective of a small group of characters, who get reincarnated into new but recognizable selves from generation to generation.
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9	----
10	!!''The Years of Rice and Salt'' contains examples of:
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12	* AlternateHistory: One where Europe is taken out of the picture and it ripples from thereon out.
13	* AlphabeticalThemeNaming: To help us keep track of who was who in a past life, all reincarnations of a character always keep the same first letter in their names.
14	* AngryBlackManStereotype: Kyu, very much Kyu. Interestingly his anger is directed at the Chinese for enslaving him rather than white people, who really aren't in a position to do much of that in this timeline.
15	* AnimalMotifs: K and tigers. They even get reincarnated as one in "The Haj in the Heart".
16	* AscendedExtra: In a couple stories, the P character (see ThemeNaming below) plays an unusually large role.
17	* AuthorFilibuster: Particularly in the Widow Kang section.
18	* AxCrazy: The K Character frequently has shades of this throughout their different lives (though usually for good reason). In particular, Kyu, the African firebug eunuch, though to be fair, the slave traders just sort of sprung the whole "eunuch" thing on him without his consent.
19	* TheBlackDeath: In this world, it was much more virulent, killing off 90% of the European population.
20	* ButtMonkey: K goes through a rather shocking amount of pain and indignity over the course of their many lifetimes, being (among other things) [[GroinAttack castrated by Chinese slavers]], caught in a tree snare, captured and nearly [[HumanSacrifice sacrificed]] by hostile Incans, and having a hand chopped off by the Khan of the Samarkand.
21	* CelestialBureaucracy: Every time they die, the characters find themselves in the Bardo, where the souls of the dead await reincarnation according to Tibetan Buddhism. As China grows in power in the world of the living, the Bardo falls under the influence of the Chinese Celestial Bureaucracy.
22	* DisproportionateRetribution: Kokila is reincarnated into a tiger because she poisoned a guy who seduced her best friend, got her pregnant and abandoned her to die.
23	* EducationMama: Widow Kang mercilessly drills her youngest son in the Confucian classics in order to make a proper scholar out of him.
24	* EunuchsAreEvil: Kyu, though not so much evil insomuch as he's AxCrazy and pissed off.
25	* ExpandedStatesOfAmerica: An odd, allohistorical example. By the time the reader first meets them, the Hodenosaunee federation (which partly serves as an analogue for the U.S. in this timeline) has already expanded beyond the six tribes that it comprised in real-world history. It adopts additional members (ostensibly with their consent) over the course of the story, and ends up governing much of North and Central America by the "present day."
26	* ForeverWar: The Long War between China and Dar al Islam lasts for over 60 years, at which point hardly anyone remembers or cares what started it in the first place. [[spoiler:China wins. Or, rather, Dar-al-Islam loses.]]
27	* FreudianTrio: B, K and I, with the rest of the jati spinning around them. K as TheId, B as TheEgo and I as TheSuperego.
28	* HeroicBSOD: All characters after The Alchemist.
29	* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Several major rulers remain the same across timelines--Timur (Tamerlane), Akbar, the Yongle Emperor and his admiral Zheng He, etc.
30	* KarmaHoudini: Remember Shastri, that guy Kokila killed? While she came back as a tiger, he reincarnated as a prince.
31	* LastOfHisKind: The English fisherman who shares his campfire with Bold in the opening chapters. It's significant that the only English dialogue in the entire book is the word [[ThePlague "dead;"]] naturally Bold doesn't know what it means, but he can guess.
32	* ThePlague: In this version of history, it led to the near-complete depopulation of the European continent. It also [[spoiler:wipes out everyone's reincarnations at the end of "The Alchemist."]]
33	* RageAgainstTheHeavens: K often does this in the Bardo.
34	* RedOniBlueOni: K is very much the red to B's blue.
35	* ReformedCriminal: Kheim is a former pirate who ended up an admiral of the Ming fleet. Khalid went from trying to con a Sultan to providing him with scientific military advances.
36	* {{Reincarnation}}: The entire cast is reincarnated together repeatedly.
37	* ReincarnationIdentifyingTrait: The continuously reincarnating characters are identified by their shared initials, such as Kyu and Kokila.
38	* TheRemnant: Although Western civilization is all but destroyed, a few fragments remain such as Georgia and New Norway.
39	** Some extremely isolated communities on the far peripheries of Europe (e.g. the Orkney and Shetland islands) turn out to have survived the plague, although by "modern" times they're little more than a curiosity.
40	** There are brief mentions of Ethiopia as the home of one of the last remaining Christian cultures (perhaps ''the'' last).
41	* RuleOfCool: During the Long War, Dar-al-Islam uses long-range artillery to '''blow the top off of Mount Everest''', making K2 (within their borders) the tallest mountain in the world. A tactic with no military value, and arguably minimal effect on enemy morale.
42	** At the end of the book, a more heartwarming variation, as mountain climbers bring bricks with them, rebuilding the summit piece-by-piece.
43	* SceneryPorn: Vibrant descriptions of the settings are frequent.
44	* ShoutOut: The first chapter is written in a style that imitates ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest''.
45	** The last chapter has a shout out to ''Literature/{{Candide}}''.
46	** Two characters in the "Age of Great Progress" chapter are named Kiyoaki (one of the protagonists of Creator/YukioMishima's ''The Sea of Fertility'' cycle, in which the same person is reincarnated in each book) and Tagomi (a character in ''Literature/TheManInTheHighCastle'', another very famous alternate history novel).
47	** The last chapter references the real-life historiographical scholarship of Hayden White, attributed to one "Scholar White" in the alternate-timeline present day.
48	* ShownTheirWork: Events shared with our timeline are handled in very great detail.
49	* SpaceFillingEmpire: Dar al Islam, China, and the Hodenosaunee League.
50	* TooGoodForThisSinfulEarth: Butterfly and Bihari.
51	** [[AvertedTrope Averted]] in the fact that all characters eventually die. [[{{Reincarnation}} And come back]].
52	* TrainingThePeacefulVillagers: When [[{{Ronin}} Busho]] is taken in by the Hodenosaunee League, he begins to teach them about modern warfare, agriculture and industry, so that they will be able to withstand the Chinese colonizers on the West Coast and the Islamic ones on the East Coast. Centuries later, the Hodenosaunee League survives as a major world power.
53	* WarIsHell: The Long War can best be described as being like UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne leading directly into UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo without a pause.
54	* WorldHalfFull: Eventually. The list of challenges facing the world after the Long War (which one character helpfully lays out for the reader) is daunting, but humanity has plenty of hope and potential to meet them.
55	* ZeppelinsFromAnotherWorld: Airplanes remain limited to military use, while civilian air flight is accomplished mostly by airship (and later, "space planes"!).
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Context Literature / TheYearsOfRiceAndSalt