SOUNDTRACK:
[READ: June 2022] Sea of Tranquility
S. brought this book home and said she thought I’d enjoy it. She knows what she’s talking about, and I did enjoy it.
This is a time-travel/pandemic/end of the world novel. And for all of the time jumps, it’s still pretty short (just over 250 pages).
The book opens in 1912. We follow the story of Edwin St. John St. Andrew, and eighteen year old aristocrat who has been sent away from him home in England to the wilds of Canada. I found his story to be quite interesting. Being the youngest son, he stood to inherit nothing, so he had to make he way abroad anyhow. But he also hated the way England had taken over India and colonialism in general. But his parents were born in India raised by Indian nannies and had nothing but fond memories of the place. So when he publicly stated his disgust with the system, he was told in no uncertain terms that it was time for him to go.
Edward eventually makes it to Victoria, BC. He is miserable there, too and really doesn’t know what to do with himself. He wanders into the forest. He sees, inexplicably, a priest. And then when he turns to a giant maple, he is struck by darkness, loud noises, music and chaos. All for about one second.
The next section jumps to 2020 and follows Mirella and Vincent.
We open on Paul, a composer, who is showing off his latest work–a work that uses video footage that his sister filmed. The footage looks a lot like what Edward saw in the forest.
Paul’s sister was named Vincent. Mirella had been a friend of Vincent’s and hadn’t know she was dead. In fact, she had come to Paul’s performance to try to get in touch with Vincent. Their friendship ended when Vincent’s husband was involved in a Ponzi scheme that brought down a lot of people.
While she is trying to talk to Paul after the show, they are joined by another man, named Gaspery. He winds up talking to her and she thinks she recognizes him. But it’s impossible because she recognizes him as a man who was involved in a shooting in an alley when she was a little girl.
The next section is set in 2203 and is called The Last Book Tour in Earth. Olive Llewellyn was born on the moon and has written a number of novels–novels that sold well on Earth as well. She was happy to be on Earth because she could also visit her parents. Her parents moved back to Earth after she had left for college.
This book, Marienbad, was being made into a film. So even though it was a few years old, publicity was called for. She enjoys the trip although she misses her family back on the moon. Soon though, there is word of a pandemic stretching out across the Earth. It had been a long time since the Earth had dealt with such a thing, and people didn’t know how to prepare for it anymore. Emily had written a previous novel about a pandemic and knew, from her research, what she should be doing. But no one else seemed to be paying any attention.
The last interview she has is with a man who prepares to ask her if she had experienced something strange at the Oklahoma City Airship Terminal.
The story jumps one more time to 2401. A man named Gaspery. Gaspery tells us about the first moon colony which was built in the Sea of Tranquility. There was much interest in immigration and Soon they had moved on from Colony 1 to Colony 2. The Colonies were meant to replicate Earth as much as possible–including artificial lights that mimicked the Earth cycle. But when the lights failed and were deemed too expensive to repair, that set in motion the gradual abandonment of Colony 2.
Gaspery grew up living near the house where Olive Llewelyn lived. It was now occupied by a family with a girl, Talia, who was about his age. Talia seemed to always want to gaze out of the dome toward Colony 1. Gaspery’s sister, Zoey, on the other hand, did not ever go near the dome (their mother didn’t like them going there).
When they grew up, Gaspery wound up getting a job at the Grand Luna Hotel in Colony One. Coincidentally, that’s where Talia has moved and gotten a job (as head of HR). Zoey, meanwhile had become a super smart scientist working at the Time Institute. One night in a state of panic, she tells Gaspery that their work has uncovered something. It involves time travel. It is dangerous. Gaspery, hating his job and his life, volunteers. Zoey won’t hear of it, but her coworker, Ephrem, agrees to let Gaspery try out for the job.
A few years later, Gaspery is ready and he is told about the video footage that Paul the composer showed in 2020. Zoey fears that the glitch in the video, the glitch that Vincent film, the same glitch that Edward saw in 1912, the same glitch that Olive wrote about in Marienbad (which is why the reporter asked her about the airport). If these glitches are connected…does that mean our world is a simulation (like the Matrix?).
Gaspery is to be dispatched to the above timelines to see what he can learn about this glitch. The one caveat–the big thing that the Time Institute cares about, is that you don’t mess up the timeline. Gaspery can’t imagine why anyone would do that. Then he learns that Olive Llewelyn died on Earth on that book tour. Because of the new pandemic she was not allowed to go back home to the Moon. It wouldn’t hurt just to hint that she should end her tour early, would it?
The story unfurls quickly from there with Gaspery leaning a bit more with each time he jumps into.
I enjoyed this story a lot.
S. tells me that Emily St. John Mandel wrote a previous book about a pandemic (Station Eleven). Interesting, no?
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