Book Look: Time travel and mystery to discover in sci-fi dystopia 'Sea of Tranquility'

As I was growing up, I liked to read anything and everything. I did not associate books with genres, so my reading was scattered across the board.

In college, one of my majors was literature, with the primary emphasis on American and English Literature. One influential college teacher hooked me on classics. Her advice to young literature majors was to read the classics almost exclusively until about age 25, then read whatever you darn please.

I more or less followed her advice. After about three years of teaching at the Watertown High School, I still read eclectically, but my interest centered on science fiction and fantasy.

That was when science fiction reading became respectable, with golden age authors like Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein and Ray Bradbury, among many others leading the way.

As time went on, I reduced my reading of science fiction and fantasy in favor of crime fiction and classics.

In 2009, I read the first crime novel by a young Canadian writer named Emily St. John Mandel. I was impressed and mentally ear-marked her. However, her third crime novel, enigmatically called "The Lola Quartet," begged my attention, and I prepared myself for a long series of good crime novels.

None came.

Instead, in 2014 Mandel published "Station Eleven." Not a crime novel but a haunting science-fiction dystopia that takes place in the Great Lakes region after a fictional swine flu epidemic, known as the Georgia Flu, has devastated the world, killing most of the population. Mandel's creation of characters to populate the novel was intoxicating. And in the past eight years, many other readers have agreed.

"Station Eleven" was a sensation, virtually unclassifiable in this genre-driven world. It won the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Crime Fiction Award and was nominated for the National Book Award. Then came "The Glass Hotel," a good novel but not as exceptional as "Station Eleven."

This year, Mandel has penned "Sea of Tranquility." Some of the characters from "The Glass House" are in this novel, but it is a stand-alone work of science fiction-fantasy genre with strong remnants of her first writing world, mystery.

Science fiction-fantasy novels are challenging to review because the author creates an alternative universe. If the reviewer explains too much of the alternative universe, the book is compromised for the reader.

Hopefully, I won't mess up the book for potential readers because if you have a science fiction or fantasy gene in your DNA, you should read it.

The novel opens in 1912 with an east-to-west journey across Canada by Edwin St. Andrew. In the far reaches of a Vancouver forest, the young St. Andrew has an inexplicable vision, which is connected to meeting a man named Gaspary Roberts.   

Travel to the 21st century, and there is another mysterious encounter in a forest, this time by a woman named Mirella Kessler and the same Gaspary Roberts. Fast forward two centuries with another similar vision with Gaspary Roberts.

By the way, this Roberts is no relation to me.

There is a mystery to be solved and a time-travel trip for the adventurous. Once again, this book is more about the descriptions than it is about the happenings.

One of the trips taken in the book is between Earth and Mars, which has become a refuge for earthlings.

I read this book in one day. There was a cosmic mystery that I had to discover. Also, there was page after page of conscious-building language.

However, this book is not for everyone. Mandell sets up scenarios that are not answered right away. It is also very possible that there is no one ending we take away from this book.

"Sea of Tranquility," by Emily St. John Mandel, Alfred A. Knopf, 2022, 255 pages, $25.

In July, I will examine "Extreme Weather" by Christopher C. Burt. With the weather changing more rapidly, it is interesting to examine how extreme it has been in the past.

Donus Roberts is a former teacher, current advisor to the ABC Book Club, an avid reader/collector of books, owner of ddrbooks, and he encourages readers to connect at ddrbooks@wat.midco.net.

This article originally appeared on Watertown Public Opinion: Time travel and mystery in sci-fi dystopia Sea of Tranquility