As Emily St. John Mandel’s work often does, Sea of Tranquility weaves together different narratives across different time periods – though in this one, the times are much further apart. We begin in 1912 with Edwin, a younger son of a British aristocrat, who has been sent in exile to Canada after expressing some unpopular opinions at a dinner party. We then follow Mirella in 2020, living through the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Next, Olive, an author in the year 2203 who was born and raised on a Moon colony, is making the rounds on her book tour on Earth. Then, we have a first-person narrator – Gaspery, in 2401, who is investigating a mystery across all of these timelines.

A strange temporal anomaly, an incident with violin music in an airship terminal, weaves in and out of each narrative and ties all of the threads together. Pandemics are also a major theme in the book – unsurprising, from a book written in the middle of a pandemic by an author whose previous works include a pandemic novel. Mirella's part takes place in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic is just beginning, Olive’s book features a pandemic, a topic which she has heavily researched, in Edwin’s time the 1918 Flu pandemic is looming on the horizon, and in Olive’s time there are stirrings of a mysterious new disease emerging in Australia. This is the first novel I’ve read since our current pandemic began that actually explores the effects of a pandemic in any real way, I thought it was very thoughtfully done.

This book is a little more explicitly sci-fi than the other books I’ve read by the author (Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel), with time travel and temporal anomalies as prominent parts of the story and entire sections set hundreds of years from now. The writing is just as beautiful as in the previous novels, and the intricate weaving-together of timelines that has become the author’s trademark is just as skillful. I love the slow way that the threads all come together, and at the end, the full picture you’ve been catching glimpses of finally emerges.

Overall – another beautiful speculative novel from Emily St. John Mandel, and well worth reading.

Representation: LGBTQIA+ characters, minor POC characters, character with mental illness

CW: mention of suicide

Not only do I give this a 5 star rating, but I recommend you find the time to read it a second time to put all the pieces together for yourself. Resting on the premise of time travel, the story weaves in and out of history. Throw in a pandemic, and colonies on the moon and you have a gripping dystopian story. But what makes it 5 star is the writing. I don’t think I have ever highlighted so many rich descriptions, insightful observations and complex conclusions.
I loved Station Eleven, but Sea of Tranquility captured my imagination in every possible way.

Clever narrative structure, strong worlding. A fast read that would be enjoyed by readers of Station Eleven and Cloud Atlas.

What is reality anyway? Is it the concreteness of the world around us or the way we exist in space and time?

This story is an exquisite exploration of pandemics, isolation, and fear but also how we're all connected through time and space, the beauty of things that really matter and the unexpected ways we change the world around us.

I wanted a bit more at the end but loved the journey. Another wonderful title from this author, possibly the most meta thing she could have written right now. This is a thought-provoking, intriguing read. 4.5 stars

I've read every Emily St. John Mandel title she has published. Based on the continued excellence of SEA OF TRANQUILITY, that reading habit will continue with all her future titles.

This was a fantastic book. Emily St. John Mandel has become my favorite contemporary American novelist after her last three books—all amazing.

In this book, we follow several different characters from different centuries. Gaspery, living in about 2400, finds himself drawn to a unique profession at the Time Institute where he will investigate the very nature of reality. Are we existing in a simulation? Can he ignore his human urge to intervene during his trips to the past?

This book pieces together the human experience beautifully. A compelling read for time travel and sci fi fans. The character writing and insights/validations about living through a pandemic really made this a page turner for me.

A highly imaginative take on pandemics, time travel, and human nature from one of the great young storytellers writing today. Mandel somehow manages to make a fantastical science fiction tale completely relatable; she inhabits her world with three-dimensional characters that we know even as they're floating in space or traveling back centuries in time. Great fun--Mandel is going to win many new fans with this one.

As always, Emily St. John Mandel delivered with this novel! It was an engaging story that I've been thinking about long after I read the last page.

WOW! Just wow!

I read Station Eleven many moons ago and fell in love with the author's writing. While I have yet to read the Glass Hotel, I dove right into this novel. Halfway through I didn't know where the story was going or whether I wanted to continue to read it. I'm glad I did... the story is told over the course of 500 years (give or take) through the lens of several narrators, jumping back and forth between the past, the present, and the future. It's a novel with a central mystery that needs to be solved but it's also a story of love and second chances... it's a story that may make people think we live in the Matrix... and it's a story about plagues and pandemics. While that last bit may turn people off, Emily St. John Mandel handles it with care even though the book has parallels of the last two years.

Another brilliant, mind-bending novel from Emily St. John Mandel, and the only work of fiction I have ever encountered that involves time-travel in a way that isn't full of logical inconsistencies. She also artfully weaves in characters from her last two novels, The Glass Hotel and Station Eleven.

This book was absolutely incredible. For fans of St. John Mandel's other works this will provide a fitting conclusion to the incredible arc of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel. Mandel's writing is so beautiful and her storytelling is so incredible that this book literally made me weep with joy. Forget the Marvel Cinematic Universare, it's the Mandel Cinematic Universe all the way.

"No star burns forever"

Emily St. John Mandel knows how to craft the perfect story.

When it comes to science fiction, she is in a class of her own. The only way I can think of describing her genre is “poetic sci-fi” or “literary sci-fi”. Sea of Tranquility deals with very science-y themes (time travel, simulation hypothesis), but at it’s core it is very much a study of the human condition.

The book is filled with vivid moments I will never forget. Edwin’s feelings of awe and terror at his overexposure out at sea and in the prairies. Olive’s fear and confusion during the pandemic lockdowns (which we can all relate to!). Gaspery sitting on the porch, watching the airships take off on the horizon. And, of course, the glitch. The violin’s lullaby, the airship whoosh, the echoes of the terminal, the maple branches swaying in the wind. This pivotal moment is now indelibly stuck in my mind thanks to Mandel’s beautiful narration.

The story flow is perfect, the characters are endearing, the plot is intriguing. A solid contender for the Hugo. I will put this book in the hands of everyone who thinks sci-fi is not for them.

STUNNING! This may be St. John Mandel's best yet, and that's not just because my Library is featured in it! (The Mercantile Library does indeed have a 10,000 year lease!)
I loved the callbacks to The Glass Hotel, and the very meta descriptions of a pandemic book coming out during a pandemic and after...
Just gorgeous.

Emily St. John Mandel pens another hit that takes us from 1920 to 500 years in the future on another moon. She weaves a lyric tale of life, travel, and metaphysics between Edwin, Olive and Gaspery-Jacques as each seeks to understand the violin music in the wilderness. Mandel draws you in and takes you on a journey truly through time and space as we try to discover more about ourselves and our fellow humans.

This short, perplexing novel will please Mandel fans and find her new readers as well. The first sections seem odd until everything suddenly starts to make sense, and even then the puzzle remains a fascinating thought experiment. Thank you for the advance copy.

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC.
I thought I'd probably like this a lot. I LOVED it. OK, maybe it's not quite as good as Station Eleven (is anything???) but I did like this better than the last one, even though I did like that one too. And the little places that touched on Vincent from the last book were fun.
I don't know what it is about this author. Just sign me up for the rest of my life. I enjoy so many books by so many authors--I've read several good ones lately, and then I picked this up, and just fell in a hole and have never really gotten out since. Still thinking about this one, still partly on Moon Base 2 or something, idk. This was lovely.

This was exquisite. Absolute perfection. I truly had no clue where this book was going with its storyline and characters but didn't care. I just wanted to be along for the ride. This book is brilliant and so is Emily St. John Mandel.

This is a lovely, weird little book. There are a few different time periods and a singular event witnessed by various people. And there's time travel. And pandemics. And a delightfully twisty way relating all the pieces together. It is Emily St John Mandel at her best.