Martha, I've only read one of those alternative histories; I picked it up and liked it, although it's quite long (so long I gave up on it near the end, I think, but there was so much good story along the way that I didn't care, and I intend to read it again.)
The book is Kim Stanley Robinson's "The Years of Rice and Salt." It begins in the 14th century, with the Black Death, only instead of killing a third of Europe's population, it kills 99%. It then describes the next 700 years with the world dominated, not by Westerners and Christianity, but by the East and Middle East, Buddhism and Islam. (America is discovered by the Chinese.)
Sometime when you feel like killing 700 pages or so...
Oh, a device the author uses to link all the ages: the Tibetan concept of reincarnation and the bardo. In this book, the bardo is like a waiting room between lives, and beings travel through the ages in a small, unchanging group. So in 1400, I might be a mother of 7 and you might be my youngest son, while in 1650 I might be a streetsweeper and you a wealthy woman who lives at the end of the street I clean. Part of the fun of the book is following these changing/unchanging lives.
Last edited by Mellowicious; 07/11/09 02:17 PM.
