Emily St. John Mandel

I just finished Station Eleven and I tried to pick up another book to read but I couldn’t. I really enjoyed this book and now I need some time to process and let the book swirl in my mind and in my heart for a bit. To me that is a sign of a great book. It doesn’t happen often.

I usually shy away from post-apocalyptic stories as they can be too depressing but this book didn’t do that. There were times that were dark and times that were light. They balanced each other out

One of the things I really enjoyed about the telling of this story is the way the different people, different places and different times wove throughout the book. It was like a master weaver was telling the story. Each thread was in place and in harmony with the others. Some threads were more important to the story but the rest were also needed to hold the story in place. I like how the story ended with it still on the loom. More could still be woven and I wanted to see how the pattern continued to develop.

I really want to see and enjoy the Station Eleven comic book. I want to read the story and see the pictures.
… (mere)

This is a VERY short, unusual piece of work. It is set in four different time frames, early 20th century British Columbia, roughly present-day New York City, 23rd century moon colony and 25th century Time Institute.

The different threads are pulled together through the presence of a time traveler from the 25th century named Gaspary. Gaspary is recruited to work at the Time Institute to investigate what is essentially a “glitch in the Matrix”. As you might imagine, time travel is very strictly regulated in order to prevent corruption of the time line, which any reader of time travel genre can appreciate. Unfortunately, or not, Gaspary is not as meticulous in this regard as his overseers would like.

As stated, this is a very short work, easily consumable in a single sitting (3-4 hours), which is probably wise, given the complexity of the subject matter. The payoff is pretty decent and makes the effort worthwhile,… (mere)