by Kim Stanley Robinson...

anyone else read it?

Oh dear god yes!

About two years ago, I think.

My absolute favorite book.

I think the entire planet should be forced to read it!

Hell yeah. I lend it to people as often as I can. Great book. I love Kim Stanley Robinson.

Yeah, loved this book. Using reincarnation as a device to keep the same characters throughout hundreds of years of history was a really neat idea.

I think his (her?) version of what happened in America (the disperate nations all uniting) was a bit optimistic but it was a really nicely thought out book altogether.

I don't always rate his writing. Some fo the Mars stuff was pretty ropey...

back to YORAS
well, optimistic, yes, but there had to be a third power in the world, to oppose the great theocracies...

and the Travancore league had to have others to help.

Interesting the whole debate about monotheistic religions being essentailly flawed.

The astonishing thing about this book for me was the bredth and scope of it.

I agree with nameless. make it a set text!

I have this at home, but have yet to read it. I must move it up in my reading queue. Pronto.

it takes a little while to move into high gear, and you need some momentum, because the characters are shorn of their usual identifiers like environment and relationship (not so much the major three as the minor members of the jata).

for me it was the third iteration where it suddenly took off, but i know with others it was the fourth.

The main problem with it is that it's long and forces you to really think.

My mother just got past the Alchemist section and is now really excited. She liked it, but that section is really too long.

I made a friend read it but, he quit "half-way through the book" (i.e. on the Alchemist section). He doesn't like Robinson's style either.

I've been looking for my own jati. I'm T, and I think I've found P (but shall never tell her, don't want her to freak out!). And as I write this I think I have found B. Didn't really like B in the book, but my B is nice enough.

One last thing: I must declare my undying love for K! That is all.

when the bardot begins to break down and the references to past lives bleed in i was living in an almost hallucinagenic heaven...

I ate that book from then on.

And I *love* that he managed to give it a satisfying end...
since no normal ending sufices.

(at a guess, i would maybe be P, or B... dunno)

Nameless, have you seen Spaced? theres a line in it which that reminded me of...

"its a love story between two hetrosexual men, one of whom is the most beautiful woman in the world."

i bought it because of the mars books, which were kinda weird at times, but enjoyable.
i loved Years of Rice and Salt though, freaking amazing (again from a historian's point of view)

the fact that the Natives weren't wiped out and were a huge federation in themselves! WOW! Alternative history is amazing (even when coupled with the reincarnation bit, but it really worked well)