What did I just read! This amazing novel by Emily St. John Mandel includes elements of her prior novels. There are themes of pandemics similar to Station Eleven, and there are characters returning from The Glass Hotel. At the same time, there are some hints of the Matrix. The book follows a series of anomalies that occur across multiple centuries and are investigated by a time traveler. Each story of the character in that time period and our intrepid time traveler are all great stories and tie together in a creative and original way. I really enjoyed this book and it will stick with me for awhile. I will officially read anything this author writes.
Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Characters living centuries apart -from 1912 Vancouver Island to colonies on the moon- all have the same brief, puzzling experience: They suddenly hear a violin lullaby, a whoosh, and are then transported for a brief moment to another place in time. The experience shakes all of them to the core.

Gaspery, a time traveling detective from a future moon colony, is assigned to investigate the anomaly. He discovers lives upended through space and time.

Emily St. John Mandel has created a tender and sincere novel about reality, love, art, and time. It’s the perfect novel for this weird time we’re living through. Like no other writer I’ve ever read, she gets to the heart of what makes humanity so achingly beautiful.

Coming April 2022

This one is worth a preorder.

Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader Copy and a truly lovely reading experience.

Amazing!! Yes a great story with great characters, but the writing, the style, the prose are just magnificent!! A true master-piece!

Like many of Emily St. John Mandel's books, this one is non-linear. It's also linked to Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel through characters and circumstances. When I read The Glass Hotel, I felt that time in the novel acted as an accordion, constantly expanding and contracting. That notion is heightened in this book, which is literally about time travel.

I read an ebook version of this novel on the NetGalley platform - thanks, NetGalley, but your ebook platform needs some work! I wasn't able to make highlights or notes within the book, and I only figured out how to tell how far along I was at the very end (the percentage doesn't show up when you're in reading mode, which is wrong). This is a book that would benefit from being able to flip back and forth. I felt trapped in an ultra-linear format and will need to re-read this in print or another ebook platform in the future.

Most of the technical science fiction content went over my head, but the gist of the novel is that (view spoiler). In other words, the novel explores the idea of the simulation hypothesis. In the most advanced time period (2400s), experts at the Time Institute investigate anomalies by traveling through time to better understand the "blips." We jump between characters situated in 1912, 1918, 1990, 2008, 2020, 2172, 2203, and 2401. Novels written by characters in one time are well known and quoted by characters in future time lines. Places are revisited.

I was drawn in by many of the characters, but I also felt that they held me at arm's length. I never quite inhabited them, if that makes sense. The whole novel had a dreamlike quality with a haze fallen over everything. I'll be curious to learn if that sensation persists upon a second reading when I have my bearings going into it. I'd also like to re-read Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel together to better understand how they relate to one another (this review does a great job of making sense of it all!).

Emily St. John Mandel is a master storyteller! I was completely transported right from the beginning and had trouble putting the book down.. I will read it again soon, because part of the fun is recognizing all the connection and I am certain I missed some. I appreciate how she writes about serious topics and makes me think but still incorporates the joy of telling an amazing story. Loved this book!

Emily St. John Mandel has shown time and again her skill as a writer, and this title proves no different. A wonderfully engaging story about an author, a colony on the moon, a pandemic, and some time travel to tie a bow on it all.

Absolutely adored this!! I was not a huge fan of Station Eleven, so hadn't read anything else of St. John Mandel's. Picked this on a whim, and loved it so much that I bought all of her past work. She is an absolute genius. Can't recommend this enough.

I was excited to read this new book from Emily St John Mandel as I loved Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel. I like how she brings in characters from previous books but not in a ‘sequel’ way, you certainly don’t need to have read the previous books first.
This book covers historical fiction, time travel, sci fi and family dynamics all in one book and the author brings everything together with style, making it a satisfying read.

Just gorgeous. Emily St. John Mandel has a way with words that makes me want to sit down and put a pencil to the page. And this book, in particular, is so immediate, so true to the time that we live in.

"...there's always something. I think, as a species, we have a desire to believe that we're living at the climax of the story. It's a kind of narcissism. We want to believe that we're uniquely important, that we're living at the end of history, that now after all these millennia of false alarms, now is finally the worst that it's ever been, that finally we have reached the end of the world."


I read this in two late nights, quietly immersed with my Kindle tucked under or at the edge of the blankets as my son slept beside me.

This book is informed by her earlier works, so I recommend that you sit down and read Station Eleven (which I originally rated as 4 stars, but which I have read twice now and it haunts me so much that it has become, in retrospect, one of my favorite books) and The Glass Hotel before you read this one. While Olive Llewellyn notes that she does not do "auto-fiction" there was enough in her story that made me wonder how autobiographical this was to St. John Mandel's own experiences, as an author who wrote a pandemic book and then there was a pandemic.

I love the webs of people, and how they touch each others lives. I love the small paragraphs, the tiny moments, each self-contained, that make up some of the stories. I hope everyone who picks this up once it is published loves it, too. I feel like if you love St. John Mandel's earlier books, it will not disappoint.

Perfect literary sci-fi.

The Sea of Tranquility is quintessential St. John Mandel: multiple timelines, complex characters, and just hard enough to follow that you'll start questioning if you understand anything at all. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed "The Glass Hotel." Its form isn't for everyone but is true to the formula that made this author a star.

Emily St. John Mandel stomps me. I've said it before that I think she had made some sort of pact with a trickster muse that has blessed her with an inhuman talent, because otherwise, how to explain that she has written yet another fantastic book? And yes this book is both very different from Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel, but there is an undeniable 'Emily St. John Mandel' quality to it that I am incapable of putting into words—her fans will know what I'm talking about.

But she also stomps me because I am used to reviewing books through a ready-made vocabulary of how a book speaks to our moment, or its larger social value. And not that this book doesn't have those qualities (pandemics are not an insignificant feature of this story and are handled in a way that felt refreshing rather than inevitable), but Sea of Tranquility manages to transcend the need for "urgency" and trite relevance. Because first of all, this book is about the pleasure of reading a well-narrated story, of the kind that sweep you away with its imagination, makes you long and fear this new world it's describing, and also make you appreciate your own existence and its improbability.

I don't want to dwell too much on the plot because there are a bunch of twists and turns here that are better left to the reader to discover: suffice to say it features space and time travel, a colony on the moon, an endless book tour, and a rouge time traveler who is far too human for his job. And just when you thought you got the hang of where the story is going - you don't. I loved that in this book we feel St. John Mandel's presence more than ever (actually the first time we feel her presence point-blank in her bibliography). I won't call them moments of auto-fiction, but there was a tongue-in-cheek biographical note to them which I appreciated in this hall-of-mirrors of novel.

But beyond the pleasure of the story, there is a fairytale quality to St. John Mandel's writing that draws me in every single time, and makes me feel unmoored too. Her writing and imagination is so exquisite, that—like Ishiguro—she has a knack for approaching universal themes (what does it mean to be human, what does it mean to live a good life) in ways that bypass triteness and instead leave you reeling.

This works great as a stand-alone book, which it is. But it almost feels like a tribute to her fans too. I think you will appreciate some threads of the story a lot more if you have read The Glass Hotel.

I am so thankful to Emily St. John Mandel for her ghosts and her imaginative fiction which always manages to pull at my heartstrings.

I'm still not quite sure what I just read but I do know I couldn't read it fast enough and then I was so sad it was over. With elements of time travel and a bit of sci-fi, the author takes the reader on a journey spanning centuries. It feels far away and yet very real. I don't know how to write a review without spoiling the plot. Characters from The Glass Hotel make an appearance as secondary characters and the familiarity was lovely. If you loved Station Eleven, you must read this latest offering! Having devoured it in just a few hours, I think I need to go back and soak up more details.

Lately it seems that I have been reading a number of stories with multiple time lines. Mandel does a wonderful job of engaging the reader with each story without wasting time in elaborate set ups. It was also a treat to be reunited with characters from The Glass House, although it's not necessary to have read that novel in order to enjoy this one. While Mandel takes on pandemics, climate change, and our likely dystopian future, she is never pedantic or preachy. Story comes first and what a brilliant story it is.

One of the best books of 2022, without a doubt! Mandel somehow encapsulates our present day and feeling of time both moving incrementally and speeding up by not touching on the circumstances we're in today. I have recommended this to everyone I know!

Another great read by author Emily St. John Mandel. Many books and TV shows have woven the COVID 19 pandemic into their storylines, this is the only story that felt truly authentic to our current reality. My only criticism is that I wish there was more.

The ESJM universe expands (and contracts?) pleasingly. Time travel seems like the logical extension of her previous books and a topic I love to read about. There is a sprinkling of autofiction. Another wonderful novel.

I have never read any of Emily St. John Mandel's books before but I was blown away with this title! At first I was hesitant with all the covid-19 talk but when all the story lines came together it was clear why the author chose to include today's current pandemic in her novel. I wish the book was a little longer but overall it was a great read.

In recent years I've been burned out on both time travel and pandemic books, but this is first and foremost an Emily St. John Mandel book and I think she could make me love almost anything she writes--and as usual, Sea of Tranquility is no exception. I'm still processing but short version, it blew me away and was everything I was hoping it would be. (As other reviewers have mentioned, reading this was also even more powerful after my recent reread of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel.) I can't wait to recommend to a wide range of friends and patrons!

While I enjoyed reading this book because of Emily St. John Mandel's writing, I did not end up liking it as much as I'd hoped. I suppose I was looking for some unique plot twist at the end and didn't quite like what I got. Certainly this is an interesting book and it was a nice break from some of the other books I've been reading.

Characters from The Glass Hotel appear in this book, but the novel stands alone. I don't usually like stories involving time travel and metaphysics, but I loved this story. The plot devices were clever and believable. It's a gorgeous book! I don't want to give anything away about the plot, and, honestly, I don't know if I could give a coherent explanation of what happened. Just read it!!!