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PRODUCT
Sea of Tranquility: A novel
Product Description:
Price:
$11.99
Detailed description:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.
One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads
“One of [Mandel’s] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet.” —The New York Times
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core.
Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She’s traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive’s best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.
When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.
A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.
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Product group:
Categories: Best Books of 2024 So Far
Product name:
Sea of Tranquility: A novel
Price:
$11.99
Manor Z. –
“Sea of Tranquility” by Emily St. John Mandel is a masterful and captivating journey through time and space, exploring the delicate interconnections between individuals across centuries. Mandel’s narrative prowess shines as she weaves together disparate timelines with a subtlety that evokes both wonder and introspection. Her characters are richly drawn, each one grappling with profound questions of existence, memory, and the nature of reality.
The novel’s intricate plot, which spans from the early 20th century to a distant future, is both complex and accessible, keeping readers engaged while prompting them to reflect on the broader implications of humanity’s journey. Mandel’s prose is elegant and evocative, capturing the essence of each era with vivid, precise detail.
“Sea of Tranquility” is not just a story but an experience, a beautifully crafted exploration of the human condition that stays with you long after the final page. It’s a testament to Mandel’s talent and a must-read for anyone who appreciates thoughtful, beautifully written fiction.
Danilo Moret –
Pacing is great, increasing gradually, and when the story jumps around it’s easy to follow and keep interested. The parallels to our recent moment in history are great. I’m avoiding the story so nothing is spoiled, so just dive in and have fun.
Carolyn F Adams –
I thought this was one of the most original books I’ve read in a long time. I was so engrossed and read through it so quickly that I now need to reread it and absorb what I missed. Every detail is important in this story. It’s a giant puzzle with the last piece completing the story that never really ends. I think it will haunt me for a long time. Tremendously thought provoking!
F. Moyer –
This book was the Goodreads’ top book for science fiction in 2022. Its genre is time travel. Because of the basic time travel paradox (going back in time and killing your father before you were born), the reader of this genre typically must simply suspend belief and instead just relax and let the story sweep the reader along on an adventure (and perhaps tug on your heartstrings as well). But this book isn’t quite like that.
The book’s writing has an almost ethereal quality, unlike other time travel stories I’ve read. And there is no adventure sweeping the reader along, instead the book gives the reader a philosophical question and a personal question. The philosophical question: is life real or are we living in a simulation? The personal question: If you went back in time as an observer, could you maintain your objectivity, essentially remaining indifferent to what you knew was going to happen to those you were observing? These two questions are the focus of this story.
Bottom Line: Most of this book seemed more like great literature than simply a sci-fi adventure. Perhaps I’m not intellectual enough because, though I liked the writing and thought the story was clever, I missed the adventure.
Peer Sylvester –
Ähnlich aufgebaut wie David Mitchells Cloud Atlas springt auch dieses Buch einmal vorwärts und einmal rückwärts in der Zeit. Allerdings sind diese Teile deutlicher miteinander verbunden und bilden eine zusammenhängende Geschichte. Dafür sind die Teile deutlich kürzer – Das Buch ist eher eine Novelle als ein Roman. Dadurch fehlt tatsächlich vielleicht etwas die Tiefe an der einen oder anderen Stelle. Das eigentliche Thema ist dabei ein eher klassisches, dass schon vielfach bearbeitet wurde und eine furchtbar neue Seite kann auch die Autorin nicht abgewinnen – aber die alternative Theorie passt schon sehr gut und lässt auch ein bisschen was zum Spekulieren offen,
4 oder 5 Sterne? Ich möchte ein Buch nicht abstrafen, weil es kurz ist. Ich hätte zwar gerne sehr viel länger im Meer der Ruhe verbracht, aber das liegt eben auch daran, dass die Autorin sehr gut schreibt und mMn durchaus interessante Charaktere bietet. Daher vergebe ich die höhere Wertung.
Igo Hummaan –
This book checks all the boxes as far as being an interesting, well-written story that will keep you engaged from start to finish. As noted by other reviewers the author is good at building up a sense of the world her characters inhabit, without clobbering you with the details. The level of character development was generally good, given the amount of timeline jumping that occurs in the first half of the book. It had depth where it was needed (Olive, Gaspery) but otherwise characters were kept simple, most likely to keep the pacing of the story intact.
However, there are some big ideas put forward — namely time travel and simulation theory — which are handled in a way that leaves something to the imagination (always good) but also leave some questions unanswered (frustrating) at the end. In some sense it has to be this way because scientifically these remain fictional concepts; we don’t have “the answers” to time travel and simulated worlds. But as a reader I had hoped the author would reveal more of the time travel mechanics and the “ultimate truth” about the world she has built up for us.
***Spoiler Alert***
It seems clear by the end that the world these characters inhabit is a simulation, but there’s no deeper treatment given to the topic once the final plot twist is revealed. At one point it is even suggested the sensible reaction is (paraphrasing) “So what if it’s a simulation? A simulated life is still a life.” While this is an interesting take, that’s as far as Gaspery’s reaction goes and it’s ultimately unsatisfying in the sense that it is a kind of non-reaction. As a reader (and as humans) we expect there to be some emotion — anger or fear or some type of pronounced reaction to the news that, “Wow, I am not real — none of this is real!” Once convinced of this fate, there is no further curiosity or struggle to understand the nature of the simulated reality, the origins of the simulation, or the like. Perhaps in a follow-up novel?
While it’s plausible someone could have this reaction, it’s not what one expects reading this kind of fiction. Minus one star for that but otherwise very good.
Kofi –
What a beautiful book! Refreshingly unpathetic, thus refreshingly un-American (well, she’s Canadian, and it shows): the story doesn’t need any villains and heroes, nor any action at all. And yet in no way boring, on the contrary. Great concept, great story, great writing.
Let me see what else Madame St John Mandel has published…
C4therineJ –
Ok admittedly, not my favourite genre.
I love sci fi, time slips, not my favourite. But this was just sublime. I really loved the snappiness of the chapters and segments, and it was kind of light but also kind of deep…
Not trash, but also not hard sci fi. And short. So it was a nice easy read. There’s comparisons been drawn between this and Cloud Atlas, I think this is more readable…
Totally not the same, similar in as much as the segments all come together half way through the novel. I did guess where it was going, but only because this uses a pretty well explored time travel trope.. there’s only so many time travel stories you can write right?
I’ll be reading more from this author, really pleasant surprise. Comparing it to David Mitchel is unfair, whilst I enjoy Mitchell as one of my favourites, this was infinitely more readable and digestible.
Z –
Are we living in a simulation? Is it realistic to think we will soon be colonizing Mars? This and so much more in this masterly written piece. I highly recommend that you read this book from the paper (and not listen to audio book).