Background
At the time of publication, in 2002, science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson was 49 years old and living in Davis, California. He had conceived of the premise for The Years of Rice and Salt in the 1970s while thinking about what alternate history scenario would result in "the biggest change that would still work in terms of comparison to our history". He subsequently developed an interest in China and in Buddhism which he would study for this project. Robinson's only other alternate history story prior to this project was the short story "The Lucky Strike" (1984) where the Enola Gay crashes in a training exercise and the secondary crew must complete the Hiroshima bombing. Robinson also wrote an essay titled "A Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions" (1991) comparing different theories of history and laws of science, such as the covering law model, to explain how alternate histories can be arrived at, using "The Lucky Strike" as an example. He explored the idea of non-Western influences creating a new culture while working on his Mars trilogy which involved a heavy Muslim influence in a Martian colony. The Mars trilogy gave Robinson a reputation for quality of writing and a richness of detail comparable to James Michener, as well as winning him a Nebula Award for Red Mars (1993) and two Hugo and Locus Awards for Green Mars (1994) and Blue Mars (1996). Robinson followed the Mars trilogy with the novel Antarctica (1997), which won an Alex Award, and two short story collections, The Martians (1999) and Vinland the Dream (2001), before publishing The Years of Rice and Salt.
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