I’d already been hearing about Emily St. John Mandel for years when Sea of Tranquility came out to much acclaim. I gave it a try and found that it was well-written and entertaining but never really more than the sum of its parts. I was ready to chalk her up as too litficky for me, but some friends encouraged me to try again with Station Eleven. Now I understand the hype. 

Station Eleven is an apocalyptic novel, jumping through space and time while following a handful of key characters before, during, and after the pandemic that destroyed most of the world’s population and nearly all of its technology. But it’s not quite a mosaic novel, as the lives of these characters intertwine through the timelines, converging into something that’s not exactly plot-heavy but is more cohesive than a mere series of glimpses into characters in the apocalypse. 

I often complain when epic fantasy onboards too many perspective characters too quickly, as it rarely allows enough time to generate emotional investment in the characters before the plot has gotten going. But despite much less page time and no true central character, Station Eleven handles the myriad introductions wonderfully. The first section digs deep into a single character, delivering the sort of narrative that would have been excellent had it been a standalone piece of short fiction. It’s the sort of start that multi-POV literary fiction tends to strive for but doesn’t always hit, but Station Eleven had me more thoroughly gripped in the first chapter than I’d been in the entirety of Sea of Tranquility. 

And the book tends to keep to that philosophy of character introduction for the entirety of the first half. It’s broken into parts of roughly 35-40 pages, with each part introducing a new perspective character with the sort of care and skill that sucks the reader into the story, interrupted only briefly for interludes about the wider world or sneak peaks into characters who will later grow into bigger roles. Once the cast has been established, the book is able to shift perspectives a little bit more often, slowly bringing out the little connections between them that have Station Eleven feeling like a novel and not a collection of stories in a shared setting. 

That novel may not be plot-heavy, but its moments of convergence are truly just as satisfying as the flashier climaxes in much of genre fiction—it’s not especially long on the twists, but it still brings the wow moments. And those smaller moments can deliver a wow factor precisely because of the tremendous characterization and worldbuilding. 

I tend to prefer my worldbuilding a bit understated, and that’s exactly the approach with Station Eleven. The origins of the pandemic remain relatively murky, and the post-apocalyptic segment leaves both characters and readers completely in the dark about all but a couple isolated pockets. But it delivers on the details, like the short chapter consisting only of a list of things no one will do again, or the incomprehension the younger generation has about the way their pre-pandemic fellows lived, or the repurposing of legacy machines to serve functions far outside their original design. 

The characters who survive are mostly just trying their best to build a meaningful life in this new world, and the characters who don’t have an entirely different set of problems to deal with in the past-setting segments, but they’re no less compelling for it. It’s truly a wonder to read a book with more than one or two main characters and not feel that any of them are a weak point. Mandel has a way of making everyone’s problems interesting, whether the character is living in the past, present, or future, and even in the moments when they aren’t particularly likable. 

If there’s a weakness here, it’s the addition of a central villain in the post-apocalyptic sections. I find cult storylines a bit played out, and while the one here is executed professionally enough and moves the plot along on several occasions, it feels a little more hurried and a little bit out-of-step with the carefully constructed broader focus of the rest of the story. I’m not sure I can call it a flaw, but it’s not a strength either. 

On the whole, Station Eleven is a triumph. It’s the best book I’ve read this year, and I wish I’d gotten to it earlier. The care shown in the characterization, the emotions accompanying the apocalypse, and ways the little character moments converge as the novel progresses are truly exceptional. Highly recommended. 

Recommended if you like: litfic, character-focused stories, novels with no one central character.

Can I use it for Bingo? It’s hard mode for Book in Parts and Parent Protagonist.

Overall rating: 19 of Tar Vol’s 20. Five stars on Goodreads.