Currents in time

The new novel from Station Eleven’s author is a fascinating tale of time travel – with disturbing glimpses of our pandemic-strewn future, says Clare Wilson

Book Sea of Tranquility Emily St John Mandel Picador IT SAYS a lot about Emily St John Mandel’s imagination that while there are multiple instances of time travel in her new book, Sea of Tranquility, this is only one of several intriguing plot strands. The novel, Mandel’s sixth, is a welcome return to science fiction after her contemporary outing, The Glass Hotel. Her highly successful fourth novel, Station Eleven, is set 20 years after a deadly pandemic, and although Mandel has said that she didn’t see that book as sci-fi, she now seems to be embracing the genre. Most of Sea of Tranquility is set centuries into the future, when people have colonised the moon and even the nearby star systems. Stories that feature time travel usually have to wrestle with its potential paradoxes somehow. Even…

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New Scientist (Digital) - 1 Issue, 23-Apr-22

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