Audiobook Review – Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, Narrated by Various (4.5/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Time Travel/Science Fiction
Length: 5 hours and 47 minutes
Publisher: Random House Audio
Release Date: April 05, 2022
ASIN: B099FHNDP8
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Borrowed Audiobook from Library
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
“Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal—an experience that shocks him to his core.
Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She’s traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive’s best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.
When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.”
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got a copy of this as an ebook through Netgalley to review.
Thoughts: This book started out very slow, however as the story continued I really enjoyed how the different characters’ stories ended up being woven together. This is definitely a slow burn book and it spans a number of characters and times; all of them are brought together by a single event. For some reason the way this book was pulled together reminded me a lot of Doerr’s “Cloud Cuckoo Land”, which I also really enjoyed.
I enjoyed reading about all these different characters. Although, the stories initially seem very piecemeal and a bit slow, I was impressed at how they ended up weaving together. The themes discussed also get a lot more complex as the story goes on. You can really see how humans are human, no matter what age and space they live in. I have also always enjoyed discussion about the Simulation Hypothesis and I love (and agree with) the fact that the characters’ general summary of it is “who cares”; a life lived is a life lived.
This was very easy to read and stay engaged in. I was impressed by how impactful the story was in such a short page space; that’s a difficult thing to do and it was done very well here.
I listened to this on audiobook and the audiobook was fine. They have different narrators reading each of the characters’ time periods and that worked out okay. There was one narrator I didn’t love but the rest were easy to listen to. If you enjoy audiobooks, this is a good one to listen to.
My Summary (4.5/5): Overall I enjoyed this and am glad I read it. I find myself thinking back to it quite often. The characters here are well done and easy to relate to. The story starts deceptively simply but gets incredibly complex (both in ideas and plot) as it continues. I loved the surprise of how everything came together. I would recommend to those who like layered stories about different characters that come together as one story. I would also recommend if things like time travel and the Simulation Hypothesis intrigue you. I plan on checking out some of St. John Mandel’s other books as well.
