Sea of Tranquility

A Novel

by Emily St. John Mandel

eBook, 272 pages

English language

Published Nov. 10, 2022 by Knopf.

ISBN:: 978-0-593-32145-4

(10 reviews)

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 bestselling 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 …

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.

2 editions

toch@bookwyrm.social reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Une madeleine de Proust d'un thème SF

3 stars

Lu en anglais.

Le thème traité dans le livre est un classique dans le genre SF. Il y a eu de nombreux traitements, s'alimentant de l'imagination ou de la science et éventuelles conjectures.

Ici, c'est avant tout un prétexte, je pense, un prétexte pour déployer différentes questions sur la société, mais des questions de vie et perceptions individuelles. Sans écrire un roman en 20 tomes, l'autrice nous offre un roman agréable à lire et qui donne à penser.

Parfois, certains développement me donnaient envie de critiquer. La musique du récit m'emmenait à nouveau. On pourrait qualifier certains sujets d'éculés. S'ils sont maniés avec finesse ou légèretés, ils peuvent non moins être agréables.

Martin Rundkvist reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Low-key time-travel scifi

4 stars

Content warning Discussing core plot point

I'm OK with the time travel paradoxes -- those are inevitable. But to me it's a pretty bad plot weakness here that the Time Institute notices, and manages to find documentation of, a glitch in the matrix that just looks to three observers like a migraine symptom or a petit mal epileptic fit. People's brains and senses make up all sorts of weird shit all the time, and nobody takes it as evidence of anything particularly significant.

sarah reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

yes!!

5 stars

in general a big fan of this linked trilogy and this felt like a good extension of the others. it gets better as it goes along / if you live as if it's real, it will be real

Ajbarbieri@bookwyrm.social reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Quick to read and gripping

5 stars

Was easy to read - that's what I needed at this time, and enjoyed the characters and plot. A great author.

mouse reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Lovely

5 stars

I found this touching and hopeful, I liked how poignantly the characters were drawn, and the themes of kindness and the vicissitudes of life.

My main complaint was that I think the simulation theory stuff was basically an unnecessary macguffin and didn't add to the themes (at least as far as they interested me).

David H reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

A hopeful pandemic novel

4 stars

I liked the story of isolated humans trying to find meaning in their lives, all tangled together and touched by the miraculous. It left me feeling hopeful and reassured.