With the incomparable vision and breathtaking detail that brought his now-classic Mars trilogy to vivid life, bestselling author KIM STANLEY ROBINSON boldly imagines an alternate history of the last seven hundred years. In his grandest work yet, the acclaimed storyteller constructs a world vastly different from the one we know. The Years of Rice and Salt: It is the fourteenth century and one of the most apocalyptic events in human history is set to occur--the coming of the Black Death.