Sea of Tranquility - ComeLibros Club

Martin Rundkvist reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Low-key time-travel scifi

4 stars

Content warning Discussing core plot point

I'm OK with the time travel paradoxes -- those are inevitable. But to me it's a pretty bad plot weakness here that the Time Institute notices, and manages to find documentation of, a glitch in the matrix that just looks to three observers like a migraine symptom or a petit mal epileptic fit. People's brains and senses make up all sorts of weird shit all the time, and nobody takes it as evidence of anything particularly significant.

Wolfgang Wopperer reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

"Man merkt die Absicht und ist verstimmt"

3 stars

Content warning Slight spoiler towards the end of the paragraph

… which is Goethe and translates as "one notices the intention and is disappointed". Which is the feeling I got from reading the book: While the sections set in the early 20th century work very well, the sci-fi settings have a forced and constructed feel; while the overall story arc makes sense, the details of the construction are visible too often (how everything is about what is real and what is virtual, about connection and loneliness, and in the end really only about the experience of Covid-19); and while the idea of using time travel as a plot device, not as the main topic, is great, there are just too many inconsistencies in how it is used (sometimes things happen the way they have always done because of some cross-time intervention, sometimes such an intervention causes things to change). Overall a nice read, but not much more.

David H reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

A hopeful pandemic novel

4 stars

I liked the story of isolated humans trying to find meaning in their lives, all tangled together and touched by the miraculous. It left me feeling hopeful and reassured.

PanaX@bookwyrm.social reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Review of 'Sea of Tranquility' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Nice short book. Nothing groundbreaking but adequately conveyed it's purpose.

Erica Molesworth reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

meh

2 stars

a little overrated

joachim@lire.boitam.eu reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Enjoyable, even once you've guessed how it’ll all go down

4 stars

I liked it because it was well written and short. Longer would have been boring, shorter would have cut too much. I wonder how the author's experience during the pandemic influenced the Last Book Tour Before the End of the World chapter (at least one discussion in the book was real—but from 2015). I liked this book very much, but I liked Station Eleven better, hence the 4 stars.

Derek Caelin reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Incredible

5 stars

This book washed over me. I loved the story and the way it made me feel about family, about time. The way the different stories knit together, the moments of realization that the author flawlessly sets up and executes... all of it. Lovely.

Brian Plunkett reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Review of 'Sea of Tranquility' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Great, imaginative story. 4.5 stars. I was completely hooked right from the start. I would recommend reading The Glass Hotel first.

bbbhltz reviewed Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Absolutely Meta

5 stars

Fantastic to a point I did not expect. Very meta, and covers aspects that took me by surprise. I rarely read the descriptions of books written by authors that I have read before, and here it totally paid off. If you have read the previous two works by this author, you will like where this book takes you.

Jonathan Zacsh

rated it

June 16, 2023