Sea of Tranquility

Emily St. John Mandel has a long name. Just like Station Eleven, this was an oddly beautiful slow burn. It dragged at times, but I saw the vision.

Book Summary (spoilers)

I hadn’t read a synopsis before I started, so I thought this whole book would be able Edwin’s journey around the world. Then I was thinking it’d be vampires with the fake priest interviewing him and running after getting caught as a poser. Then we switched characters and went from 1912 to 2020.

It took a while for all of the dots to connect. We got to known three characters fairly well who all had an inexplicable “glitch” happen to them. Edwin passed out while in the forest, Mirella is questioned about her friend’s video in that same forest, and Olive was in the airport for the moment of the glitch that the other two see. They all hear a violinist playing a few notes and an air shuttle flying off for a few seconds before reality kicks back in.

Now we switch again to Gaspery in 2401. He learns his sister is actually working for a secret time travel agency and has been investigating these anomalies. Her theory is that they all live in a simulation and this moment could be that breaking. Gasprey ends up convincing an old friend who works at that agency to let him be the one to go back in time and interview all the people this happened to.

Gaspery learns about these peoples stories. Edwin ends up fighting in a war, gets severe PTSD, and is sent to an insane asylum. Olive dies while on her book tour from a new pandemic. Gaspery just can’t let these things happens and does the classic move of breaking the time-space continuum by telling Olive to go back home. Then he doubles down and visits Edwin after the war to tell him that the forest incident was real to help him with his sanity. The agents can’t have this and he’s sent back to the past once again to be framed for a murder and spend his life in jail…

Until his sister saves him. He is saved and brought to a place to live his life secluded. He learns that his neighbor is his former crush who was also in time travel witness protection and they get married. The twist is that after she dies, Gaspery ventures out and learns that he is supposed to be the old violinist. It wasn’t a glitch in a simulation, it was the continuum trying to correct itself that caused all these issues.

Thoughts

The author has a way of making us care about all of her characters. The writing and prose is beautiful and flows naturally. I’m currently reading a fantasy book and it really highlights how Sea of Tranquility is a step above in that department. It’s not at a breakneck speed with action on every page, but you keep reading anyways.

The story had me guessing all the way through. I wish I had the foresight to see the twist coming cause it made so much sense afterwards. I’m glad that Gaspery got the ending he wanted and that he got to live his adventure. He was going through the motions and needed that more than anything else in his life. If I had that opportunity it’s hard to imagine how I’d have reacted.

My favorite part was how Gaspery said that it doesn’t matter if it’s all a simulation. That it misses the mark completely. Everything is still real to them and that’s not an excuse to disregard humanity.

Rating: 764/1000