Simply put, this new book is great, to be expected by the author of Station Eleven. In reality, the story is hard to describe without spoilers. Imagine that there are two parallel existences. In one, it is 2031 and the United States has collapsed Into feuding factions, and Paris exists under an artificial dome. In the other, the US exists under a totalitarian surveillance state without elections, an ordered calm. Now imagine a crossover of some individuals due to a botched teleportation experiment, creating literal doppelgängers! This is elegant and imaginative writing, a must read.
Tag: Emily St. John Mandel
Sea of Tranquility – Emily St. John Mandel
Another brilliant book by Ms. Mandel, a sweeping epic that spans from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a moon colony in 2401. Intriguingly, there are links to Mandel’s previous novel, The Glass Hotel, and to post-pandemic literature in general. And there is an author on a book tour and a time traveller. Absorbing and immersive, this is a fantastic futuristic novel that eerily captures our current reality. Highly recommended.
The Glass Hotel – Emily St. John Mandel
It is a tribute to Ms. Mandel’s skill as a writer (previous book, the brilliant Station Eleven) that a story about a Ponzi scheme in the economic collapse of 2009 can be both compelling and engaging. It is the psychology of fascinating inter-related characters that is so intriguing: the willingness to seize an opportunity, willful disbelief of reality (if it is too good to be true ..) because of delusions regarding wealth, the simultaneous paradox of knowing and not knowing. There is the enigmatic character of Vincent as a mysterious woman at the centre of the story. And there are hallucinatory ghosts in a spirit world. The story unfolds in a non-linear fashion but all loose ends are linked by the end of the book. Simply put, a great read.
The Lola Quartet – Emily St. John Mandel
The steamy heat of Florida is the setting in which people make bad decisions and lives spiral downwards: the consequences of lies and deception produce weariness and desperation. This is very good story telling by the author of Station Eleven.
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
A brilliant telling of a post-apocalyptic future after a virus rapidly kills >99% of the world’s population. The story alternates between the present which is 20 years after the plague, and the back-story of the key characters. There are some very satisfying inter-relationships between characters that are revealed slowly, including the importance of an unpublished graphic novel. This is an excellent entertaining book.
Amy notes: Later on the CBC Canada Reads long list 2016
