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Good review! We'll have to agree to disagree about the Long War (or whatever it was called). It's just too long compared to any war of that intensity we've experienced in the real world.
My interpretation of the Bardo was a little different. Based on the last chapter and the changing styles of each novella (Cloud Atlas lite, unfortunately Robinson is not as gifted nor as interesting as David Mitchell) my interpretation of the whole construction is that The Years of Rice and Salt is supposed to be an in-universe history that uses the Bardo as a framing device to make sense of the historical narrative. That's why it changes so drastically over time, and basically vanishes in the second half of the book, because it reflects the characters' shift towards rationalism and away from belief in the mystical.
Agreed on everything else. I was most annoyed by the railroad, tech-tree nature of the progression of the Chinese and Muslim societies, which really indicates a lack of imagination on the part of Robinson.
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