A compelling work of speculative fiction, told over the course of 300 years and through multiple characters, that handles the concept of time travel in a unique way--by questioning the very fabric of reality.
When many authors are avoiding any mention of pandemics in their fiction, Mandel has the concept running through her book, as indeed pandemics have run throughout human history.
This book kept me turning the pages and left me with ample food for thought.

This sort of lives up to its title; I don’t recall feeling any sense of urgency while reading it. At one point, someone describes a book-within-the-book as feeling too disconnected, with a sense of waiting for all of the characters and events to come together in some way but they never did. I wondered to myself if this was foreshadowing.

It was not, as it turns out, technically foreshadowing, but that is sort of the general feel of the book. There’s kind of a weird sense that nothing really matters, some of which may be attributable to the themes (of whether or not reality is a simulation, time travel, determinism) and the time-hopping nature of the book, so it could work for some readers but I personally prefer books that make me feel like EVERYTHING matters.

If you don’t mind this, though, and you like somewhat lyrical writing - I’m thinking maybe fans of Claire North’s books and The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - this might be a worthwhile read for you.

Truly excellent. I liked Station Eleven a lot, but I LOVED this book. It's hard to make time travel work, it's hard to write Literary (aka FEELINGS) sci-fi without being pretentious, WASPy, and moody, so I appreciate the heck out of Sea of Tranquility, which I'd hand off to fans of Cloud Atlas, The Time Traveler's Wife, and neither movie adaptation.

This book calls back to her other books as well as her own story as an author. It is subtle but fun for those who enjoyed her other books. The time travel that takes place in this book is unique and poetic and makes total sense to me when time travel often doesn't. There are several narrators but we spend the right punt with each seemingly going chronologically though the stories get intertwined in the middle. I love that the ending was a surprise but not unexpected so it doesn't come out of nowhere.

Here’s all you need to know: characters across centuries are connected by one unusual event. In 1912, Edwin St. Andrews wanders into the woods in British Columbia and hears violin music and a strange commotion. In 1994, a young girl pauses under the same maple tree and has the same experience. Jumping into the future, in 2203 and 2401, a novelist and investigator also hear the music and experience something strange.

And that’s it. That is literally all you need to know. Just jump in and let Emily St. John Mandel tell a story about the importance of human connection. Like Station Eleven, this is also a pandemic novel, though it’s different now that we are living through our own pandemic. One of my favorite parts of the novel is that Mandel takes some of the responses she got to Station Eleven and weaves them into this narrative. In 2203,the author Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour and gets a lot of flack for a completely unrealistic pandemic and writing a story that just “ends.” I loved these little Easter eggs, especially after reading Station Eleven with my work book club and hearing some of those same comments from fellow readers.

Sea of Tranquility is an intriguing novel that will keep you reading to find out how these characters, across space and time, are related. If you’ve read other novels by Mandel or enjoyed Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthoy Doerrl, I think you’d like this one too.

Highly recommend to fans of Mandel’s Station Eleven and last year’s Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Sea of Tranquility feels like it could be a follow up to one of my favorite books, Station Eleven. Much of the book revolves around an author who wrote a book about a pandemic and is on tour for that book, being asked some of the most ridiculous things in interviews. At the same time she, and others, cross paths with a strange man who ask questions about a certain moment in time.

It’s hard to explain a book like this. I loved it, especially after living through a pandemic. I thought about Sration Eleven many times in the past two years. I suspect my reading of it would be different now, so hearing references to a similar book through the voice of the author was fulfilling. I’m also a sucker for well done time travel so I loved the way it was woven through Sea of Tranquility.

Highly recommend!

In 1912, Edwin, a superfluous younger son, wanders aimlessly across Canada and witnesses something inexplicable. In 2020, Mirella goes looking for an old friend and finds her brother instead, an artist with a video that defies explanation. In 2203, author Olive is on a book tour for a novel with one particularly strange scene. And in 2401, a bored lunar hotel detective named Gaspery-Jacques has the opportunity to study what links these disparate elements. Part time travel mind teaser, part meditation on what makes life worthwhile, part desperate attempt to cope with COVID. Another beautifully written entry in the Mandel multiverse.

Out of everything I’ve read since the beginning of the pandemic, Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility is the book that truly snuck up on me and made me soak in the reality of what we are living in. I write this from a place of relative isolation: I am a stay-at-home dad who makes a podcast, writes and gets most of his social fix virtually. So here we all are, in the midst of a strange world, a strange time, and Sea of Tranquility captures that isolating strangeness with a sublime beauty and simplicity. This book is at once a thought experiment in loneliness and the human condition, while also reveling in the love and connection that binds us a species across time and space. No other story in recent memory has made me think so deeply about what I have experienced during this pandemic, nor to ponder on the realities of what it means, for me, to be human.

This is a tricky novel to pin down though, as it offers multiple POVs across different periods of time—some centuries apart. These point-of-view characters are also divided up into vignettes, offering glimpses into their initially disparate lives. While the beginning is a slow burn, the premise is vague-yet-intriguing from the get-go.

Starting off in the early 20th-century, St. John Mandel sends her first character Edwin St. Andrew across the Atlantic and North America—from England to Halifax, to the Prairies and finally to British Columbia and Vancouver Island. She perfectly captures the lonely nature of Canada’s vast wilderness, and it sets the stage for the themes and atmosphere of the novel as a whole. Also, I was raised on Vancouver Island, as was the author of this book, so it is incredible to read about someone else’s perspective on a place so near and dear to my heart.

As well, Edwin St. Andrew’s experiences in the isolated wilds of British Columbia resonate across time as more characters are introduced through subsequent vignettes: two centuries in the future, Olive Llewellyn, a famous writer from a moon colony, is on a book tour on Earth when a pandemic breaks out; and, even farther in the future, Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a time-traveling detective from the Night City moon colony, investigates a mysterious anomaly.

[Quick side note, there were some rewarding side character connections to St. John Mandel’s previous novel The Glass Hotel (also set on Vancouver Island), so I recommend reading both books to get that extra sense of reader gratification.]

As the story takes shape, St. John Mandel centers on this inexplicable anomaly that each character experiences, and then offers subtle nuggets and clues that enticed me to keep reading. It is clear these distinct individuals are interlinked in some way, and that central mystery of how is the glue that holds this brilliant novel together. I became invested in each of these smaller stories, yes, as the characters are written in such genuine and relatable ways. But the real magic is how this time-spanning narrative of interconnectedness unfolds, resulting in a spectacular-yet-bittersweet conclusion that feels (mostly) earned.

I especially like how Olive Llewellyn’s experiences on Earth so closely reflect what we are living through now, without feeling overbearing or political. She is a writer on tour, and the grinding nature of that city-hopping tour in turn grinds her down in such a way that isolation itself infects her much like a virus. Hotel after hotel, interview after interview, all of it blends in a monotonous mess that eviscerates any sense of time or true connection. Meanwhile, the world around is reacting to a new virus, one that has the potential to spread into a global pandemic. How would that then affect Olive, whose family is off-planet, on the moon? How would it make you feel to be confronted with a fictional premise that so closely mirrors our own reality? It most certainly left me thinking a lot about what I have experienced these past two years.

It also made for a fascinating thought experiment in loneliness, and captures so much of the dichotomy that defines this book for me: on one hand, a rich, vivid appreciation of life, connection and emotion, but on the other, tedium, disconnect and desolation. This is evident in Edwin St. Andrew’s physical isolation across oceans and continents at a time when letters are the prime means of communication. It is also evident in Gaspery-Jacques Roberts’ jarring experiences across time as he investigates this mysterious anomaly and the people connected to it.

The time traveling nature of Roberts’ vignettes also gives St. John Mandel the opportunity to explore the nature of reality and time in a way that I found compelling and outside the box. These ruminations are the kind of sandbox stuff I love in sci-fi, and here St. John Mandel introduces interesting ideas about potential incongruities of time and how that might relate to simulation theory. I won’t spoil anything there, but she handles this examination with a deft touch that doesn’t feel overtly scientific or ham-fisted.

On the topic of Roberts, his role in the overarching narrative becomes more and more central as Sea of Tranquility builds. I loved this, as Roberts is one of my favorite characters in the novel, but his development towards the end is a bit rushed and certain major decisions that he makes aren’t given enough time to feel justified or believable. That said, the ending was immensely satisfying for me, but I would have been content with another twenty or thirty extra pages to give his arc more meat.

Sea of Tranquility is a superb novel that sent my mind into a deep state of introspection, exploring my perceptions of identity, isolation, connection and love in ways that I haven’t in a long time—I applaud Emily St. John Mandel for utilizing the power of literature and the written word to such astounding effect. Sea of Tranquility also takes the vignette format and executes it exceptionally, offering up a slate of well-developed characters and placing them in seemingly mundane circumstances that become more and more complex. It wasn’t until the end that I realized: St. John Mandel had laid down an understated, tranquil lure, only to spring it into a mind-bending trap of satisfying ruminations on what it means to be human in the past, present and future.

I don't have to be a time traveler to know that this book will stay with its readers long after they have finished it..

In Sea of Tranquility, three people -- Edwin, Vincent, and Olive -- from three different time periods, have a short but deeply disturbing hallucinatory experience. Their experiences are identical. In the future, time travel is possible and completely controlled by a government agency, the Time Institute. The agency is concerned that this "anomaly" portends something dire and sets an investigation in motion that will have far-reaching effects.

The story is told in parts, from the perspectives of Edwin, Vincent, and Olive but also that of Mirella, who knew Vincent in their shared past and wants to reconnect with her (these characters appeared in Mandel's previous novel, The Glass Hotel) and the Time Institute investigator. The characters are vivid and their individual stories draw you in. Her imagined future world is believable and draws direct lines from our world as it is today. There's humor and mystery, but Mandel also explores some of the big questions: What gives meaning to our lives? What are the consequences of our choices? Do we have the courage to stand by our convictions? By placing her story within a speculative future, she is free to imagine "What if..." scenarios that we don't currently face but that allow us to ponder these ideas from a different perspective and she does it in a completely entertaining and compelling package. Highly recommended.

Stunning. Thoughtful. Beautifully written. Emily St. John Mandel brilliantly explores and expands on themes from her earlier work while still creating something completely new. Highly recommend.

Told in the style of a series of interconnected short stories. This latest book by Canadian Emily St. John Mandel jumps all over the place timeline wise from early 20th century to the year 2401. Fans of The glass hotel will enjoy some returning characters and links to that story. This one is very pandemic centric and meta. You can tell this was written during lockdown/with the covid pandemic in mind. It was a little too sci-fi/disjointed for my tastes personally. The time travel aspects didn't really do it for me.

I absolutely loved Station Eleven and I just haven't felt that same magic in any of the author's subsequent books. True fans will recognize a similar style but this one was kind of a miss for me. My favorite story was the 1912 plot about an English third son who is disillusioned with the world and gets sent to Canada in exile. Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for my advance review copy.

I enjoyed this book. I enjoyed the unraveling of the mystery. Once it became clear that all the various characters would intersect.

Emily St. John Mandel's Sea of Tranquility is one of the most unique and inventive books I've read in my entire life. As the reader, we jump hundreds of years through human history (and human future) yet Mandel weaves such a mind-blowing through line in the story, it's like reading a multiple POV of a group of friends. Her settings are flawless, her descriptions gorgeous. I found myself reading certain sentences over and over again because they are so beautifully written and contain so much truth to humanity. I cannot wait to make my husband read this.

Emily St. John Mandel has done it again. She is quickly becoming my favorite author, and I am excited to get my hands on some of her first novels. I had to go back to previous reviews, but she does kind of knit together her Glass Castle and Station Eleven with this book (and I'm guessing maybe her older works; we will see). Kind of a sci-fi Stephen King multi-universe appeal.

Main character Gaspery, "detective" from the way, way future helps his sister, Zoey and her theory about a time disruption. At Gaspery's present day, the people live on colonies on the moon and time travel is only allowed to fix holes. He travels to the early 1900s, around our present day 2020, 2203, and his future present day, 2041, to figure out how certain characters had experienced the same weird time glitch. There was the sound of a violin, an airship, and a forest. Does an anomaly mean their world is a simulation? Gaspery is sent in to interview each person to find out.

The only things I would change, is the inclusion of Covid. I get the appeal of including it in books written during this pandemic, but (and maybe it is just a personal thing because it is only a small portion), but I am over it. I am over hearing about it, and while we are living through it, the last thing I want to read about is a book including the pandemic theme. The second thing, would be more of the characters. More background and thoughts. It took me half of the book to realize the main character was male. (Which of course is fine, I was able to picture everything in my head in my own way), but descriptions would have been an added bonus. Towards the end, I would forget things that happened in a different section and have to go back for the "Ah-ha" moment, but I did have a few of those. I do not know how I did not see the ending coming.
If you liked Cloud Cuckoo Land and The Matrix, it has a similar premise to both.

Sea of Tranquility is the wonderful new book from Emily St. John Mandel.

"A young man crosses the Atlantic by steamship and heads to Vancouver. While wandering in the forest he suddenly hears the music of a violin and an airship taking off.

Two centuries later, famous author Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour on Earth. Her home is the 2nd Moon colony. In the pages of her novel is a scene of a man playing the violin for change in an airship terminal.

Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective, is sent to investigate an anomaly in the North american wilderness where he uncovers a chance to do something extraordinary and disrupt the timeline of the universe."

The setup takes a little while in this book. But Mandel's words and characters are so easy to read. I liked how Mandel gives us little hints about the story and then ties it together. It's interesting to be inside Gaspery's head. even when you're left wondering - Is it or isn't it?

A nice multi-genre book from St. John Mandel.

Fascinating book! Different time periods, all connected because of an anomaly. I think this may be her best book yet!

Another beautifully written book from Emily St. John Mandel. I love how her books tie together but can be read individually. This is one I will be recommending to everyone I know & will be rereading at some point.

Thanks for the free book PRH International 😊

When I started this novel everything was quite confusing. I didn't really understand what was going on and I think it was from the middle of the book that everything started to clear up and my head was like 🤯 in a good way.

This story is related to the author's other novel, The Glass Hotel, because it has characters than scenes from that book. But although I felt lost, I don't think it's because I didn't read The Glass Hotel and started with this one. Now I definitely want to read the other one to see how this would be a plugin.

Science fiction, metaphysics, time travel, and endless twists and turns that left me totally enchanted. There is also a pandemic present, and I hope that whoever is reading this had the best time possible during so many months of confinement. Those were difficult times and this book portrays those moments in a fleeting but powerful way.

The interesting thing about this book and the key is time travel, we understand it as the story progresses. And how our actions affect that timeline is also very important. At one point I felt that I was within the Loki series, where there is an institution in charge of containing the various realities and universes as stable as possible. Thing that is never possible 😂

It was certainly a very good first experience with the author 👏

PS: I loved reading the criticism about how women who are mothers and work are treated.

Is Sea of Tranquility about time travel? Metaphysics? Relationships? Well, yes. But it is about so much more. It really centers on the question of "what is reality?", Can we investigate reality? If so, how?. In gripping and stunning language, Emily St. John Mandel explores this issue in a way that will leave me changed forever. One can't ask more from an author than this. 5 stars - more if it was possible.

Again, Emily St. John Mandel has written a book that I fully bought into based on the premise then found myself in the middle of a literary piece of art. How does she keep doing this??

The pandemic aspect of this novel isn't overwhelming but accurately grasps the overall feeling and experience we've been through in the past couple years. The sci-fi aspects are brilliantly executed and thoughtful. It is cinematic and wide-reaching and has beautiful prose. I also love that she has connected this book to her others by way of certain characters or story lines (similarly to how Stephen King injects a little of the Dark Tower series into each of his books) and it's simply genius.

I honestly don't know how Mandel can take these seemingly disparate storylines and weave them together so well, while also reaching deep into my brain and soul to make me ponder things below the surface of the narrative. She's a master.