Sea of Tranquility
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core. Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him. When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe. A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.
Stats for nerds
5recommend
5mentions
5people
2022–2025years
100% recommend
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Fiction:
A Little Life - challenging to read but exceptional
Sci-fi
Three Body Problem trilogy - forget the Netflix series the books are excellent, in my opinion #2 was the peak.
The Glass Hotel, Station Eleven, Sea of Tranquility - anything by Emily St. John Mandel - hard to place but her distinct writing style transports me.
Non-fiction:
American Moonshot - fine The Path to Power - anything Caro writes is worth reading
- Fiction:
Victory City- new Salman Rushdie book. Great retelling of the history of one of the great medieval South Indian kingdoms. Not his best, but his writing is still top notch.
Sea of Tranquility- speculative fiction from Emily St. John Mandel (of Station Eleven fame). It's a series of interconnected stories spanning centuries from the near past to the near future. Beautifully written. Read when I was down with COVID earlier this year and it invaded my dreams (in a good way). Short and easy read.
Giovanni's Room- story of an American expat in Paris caught between his love for a man and his duty to his girlfriend. This is the first James Baldwin book I have read but will definitely check out more of his work in 2024.
Theory of Bastards- speculative fiction by Audrey Schulmann. Literary sci-fi similar to Station Eleven. It's about a woman researching primate behavior set in the near future where the earth is ravaged by the effects of climate change. Very well researched, beautifully written and nothing like I have ever read before. This won the 2019 Philip K Dick Award.
Invisible Cities- literary fiction by Italo Calvino. It's less than 200 pages but a very dense and tough read. It's a conversation between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan where MP is describing cities in KK's vast empire. It's a strange, strange book that I think I will return to often. If you liked the world building in Piranesi and want more, this is the book for you. Calvino describes 55 cities in under 200 pages, with each one feeling very different. Again, first Calvino book I have read and will definitely check out more of his works in 2024.
Non-fiction:
Thinking in Systems: A Primer- by Donella Meadows. Read this based on HN's recommendation. Thank you!
On Intelligence- by Jeff Hawkins. This was on my shelf for years and am glad I got to read it this year. The creator of the Palm Pilot presents his theory of intelligence and how the brain works. It's compelling. I hope to read his follow up book in 2024. Would love HN's recommendations of similar books.
A Primate's Memoir- by Robert M. Sapolsky. Enjoyable read of the author's research on Savannah baboons and his adventures in Africa. His love for primates and humans alike come through clearly.
Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making- by Tony Fadell. A great business book by the co-founder of Nest. Draws on his experience both as a startup founder and leading innovative teams at large tech companies (Apple, in his case). Just as any business book, this could have been shorter and less repetitive but thankfully, there is enough good material here to be a book rather than a blog post.
- my favorite so far is The Golden Age of the Solar Clipper series by Nathan Lowell.
but the best thing i have done to get good book recommendations is to join a scifi book club where we pick a new title every month.
here is what we read until now:
everyone of these was selected by popular vote from a handful of nominations, which means each is endorsed by half a dozen or a dozen people.Andy Weir: Project Hail Mary William Gibson: Neuromancer Theodore Sturgeon: More Than Human Ann Leckie: Ancillary Justice Chen Qiufan and Kai-Fu Lee: AI 2041 David Wellington: The Last Astronaut Nathan Lowell: Quarter Share Becky Chambers: A Psalm for the Wild-Built Octavia E Butler: Parable of the Talents John Scalzi: Kaiju Preservation Society David Brin: Kiln People Emma Straub: This Time Tomorrow Ursula K Le Guin: Left Hand of Darkness Dennis E Taylor: We are Legion Emily St John Mandel: Sea of Tranquility William Gibson: The Peripheral Dan Simmons: Hyperion Elisabet Moon: The Speed of Dark Alastair Reynolds: Eversion Adrian Tchaikovsky: Children Of Time Andromeda Romano-Lax: Plumb Rainsunfortunately i had to move and am no longer part of that club, and getting updates on their current selections is difficult.
anyone know of a similar club running online? (telegram, matrix or a forum maybe)
or is there interest in forming a club?
we could have a monthly HN post with recommendations, making selections by upvotes/downvotes, and a jitsi meetup to discuss the book afterwards.
- Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel.
- I read Station Eleven after Sea of Tranquility, and I really liked the connection in that direction. So I don't think the ordering is so important.
Really looking forward to reading The Glass Hotel as well! Emily St. John Mandel may be my new favorite author.
