Thyme said:
It is an interesting attempt at a world without the west. However, the technological advancement doesn't seem organic, and it doesn't answer how the death of a continent positively affects the technological growth of other areas.
I thought he was trying to answer that old 'nature abhors a vacuum' thing with regards to the Indian scientific revolution. I do agree that it was not adequately justified.
I managed to slog through this whole book only after 3, count 'em, 3 aborted attempts. The whole reincarnation thing, while certainly a unique way to tie the disparate time periods together, gave the whole work a very outlandish taste. It didn't feel 'real' to me.
I think the book would've been easier to swallow if it had been done as a series of discrete short stories, with totally different characters in each story. That way, the whole scope of the TL could still have been presented, but those of us who are less mystically-inclined wouldn't have had to suffer through all that stuff. But hey, what do I know? KSR is published and I'm not.