Sunday, May 29, 2022

Book: Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Mandel, Emily St. John. 2022. Sea of Tranquility. Knopf.

Wow! Time travel. Plague. A few stragglers from earlier books. A complex, recursive plot. Canadian content. Big philosophical questions. What more could one want?

I was reminded of the Robert Silverberg time travel stories that I read in high school, and the paradoxes that they highlighted. Those paradoxes are here as well, but in the background, with the characters, as usual, in the foreground.   

One subplot concerns a famous female author doing a book tour. It seemed particularly heartfelt, as do the descriptions of lockdown during the book's plague. I have a theory as to why that covers both.

I enjoyed this tremendously. Highly recommended if you like what one might call, and I will call, literary science fiction.

I purchased a "signed" edition from Barnes and Noble when it first came out.

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