Fiction Sea of Tranquillity

Emily St. John Mandel: Picador, $33

Her 2014 novel, Station Eleven, was alarmingly prescient in dealing with a pandemic long before we had one. There is another outbreak here, and it is lethal and originates in Australia. Tying together the threads of these disparate narratives are barely detectable time-warp synapses that connect Edwin in 1912 to 2203 during Olive Llewellyn’s last book tour on earth, a trip she made from Colony 2, known as the Night City after their dome lighting failed. Edwin’s languid 20th century journey to northern Canada on paid, family exile was so brilliantly depicted you are loath to leave him, the same with Llewellyn on tour. What you want are less of the anomalies and constructs of space over time, and more of the people. PENELOPE DEBELLE