I also am looking for the name of a sci-fi book from (probably) the 1970s

[AlGore-08.com]

Here's another one for DUs literary historians. Does anybody know what this book is?

I think it was a "juvenile" type science fiction novel (about the same reading level as the John Christopher's "Tripods" series), and the latest it could have been published is 1979.

The plot was that the black plague destroyed 3/4 of the population of Europe, and as a result, Europe never experienced the Renaisance, and contact between the Old World and New World occurred much later - - I think the 1800s.

The main character was a young man from Europe, who was a slave or servant to a wealthy Middle Eastern noble. I don't remember why, but he traveled to America and interacted with a number of Native American cultures, including the Aztecs and the Chinook (?).

If anybody has any idea what the name of this book is, please post it. This has been driving me crazy for years.

[RandomKoolzip]

1. "The Very Hungry Caterpillar."

No, I'm joking. I have no idea.

[Wonk]

2. Questia.com has a nice search engine for this kind of thing

http://www.questia.com/popularSearches/science_fiction_literature.jsp

Scroll to the bottom of the page to do a more detailed search.

Sounds a bit like Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, but that was only published in '02, I think.

http://www.januarymagazine.com/SFF/yearsofrice.html

[Rowdyboy]

3. If you find it, let me know...

It sounds great

[Shanty Oilish]

4. Years of Rice and Salt

author, somebody Robinson?

Or Gate of Worlds, by Silverberg?

[AlGore-08.com]

5. I think it's probably "Gate of Worlds", thanks!

"Years of Rice and Salt" was published far too late (in 2002), but "Gate of Worlds" was published in 1967. One of the Amazon.com reviews had a synopsis which sounds a lot like the book I remember:

"The Gate of Worlds takes place in 1985 in an alternate world in which the Black Death killed 3/4 of Europe (instead of 1/4) in 1348. As a result, the Turks could easily conquer Europe, leaving them in no position to colonize the New World, or anywhere else, for that matter, and non-Western civilizations all over the world were allowed to develop. But technology is almost a century behind.
This is the story of Dan Beauchamp, an 18-year-old Englishman who emigrates to the Aztec Empire, which takes up all of Central America and eastern North America. Europe is poor, but Mexico is a very rich country."