Sea of Tranquility
Year: 2022
Author: Emily St. John Mandel
Length: 347 minutes / 5.78 hours
Science fiction often bogs itself down in the details of a potential future while forgetting the poetry that can come with the written word. It doesn’t matter what scientific topic the book is handling if it’s not entertaining to read. The best ones are a combination of speculative science, entertainment, and beautiful prose. I feel Sea of Tranquility meets these three criteria. The narrative is gripping, the framework thought-provoking, and the execution superb. I’ve never seen such a common sci-fi topic like this handled so well.
Time travel feels like it can be a crutch for a writer. It’s a way to fill in details in a non-linear format that covers up any plot holes in a way that feels cheap. Jumping around in time can also make things confusing, as it isn’t clear what era each section is set in. However, the way Emily St. John Mandel handles time travel in this book is probably one of the best I’ve seen. While following a linear timeline (somewhat akin to Cloud Atlas), the depth of time travel reveals itself with each jump into the future.
I think the reason I love how this book handles time travel is that each revisit of events adds layers of context that almost require an immediate second read-through of the entire book. Sure, the time travel explains away certain mysteries—but giving the reason behind those moments just elevates the story to higher levels. And throughout the whole thing, the descriptions, wording, and overall writing is just fantastic. Even if you don’t like science fiction, this book stands out as a well-written piece of work that dives deeper into how humans can’t ever know the full extent of a moment from a singular perspective.
The best time travel book I’ve ever read, I give Sea of Tranquility 5.0 stars out of 5.
I highly recommend two other books that Emily St. John Mandel wrote: “The Glass Hotel” and “Station Eleven.” I listened to both of those books before “Sea of Tranquility” and while “Sea of Tranquility” can stand alone, the author makes references back to the two previous novels in “Sea of Tranquility” giving it more depth with the foreknowledge. “Station Eleven” was made into a mini-series that is excellent, I liked it better than the book, but both are worth the time invested.