Station Eleven

Survival is insufficient.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is a captivating novel. It is a different kind of dystopia. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, the story takes place in the aftermath of a devastating pandemic that wipes out the majority of the world’s population.

The plot moves between different timelines and characters and slowly connects their stories. Through many interconnected characters, both before and after the pandemic, the novel explores how their lives cross and how their shared experiences shape their individual journeys. They each have their own unique stories, fears, and desires.

Station Eleven is a very good dystopian sci-fi novel, but, in my opinion, it is too lengthy. Some parts are redundant and could be omitted.

The beauty of this world where almost everyone was gone. If hell is other people, what is a world with almost no people in it?

Goodreads

 

Details:

• author: Emily St. John Mandel
• full title: Station Eleven
  
• genre: sci-fi, literary fiction
  
• format/type: bookfiction
• topics: #dystopia, #pandemics
  
• publisher: Knopf
  
• publish date: September 9, 2014
• pages: 333
  

My Rating of the Book:

• content: 💙💙💙💙

Excerpt from the Book:

 

Jeevan found himself thinking about how human the city is, how human everything is. We bemoaned the impersonality of the modern world, but that was a lie, it seemed to him; it had never been impersonal at all. There had always been a massive delicate infrastructure of people, all of them working unnoticed around us, and when people stop going to work, the entire operation grinds to a halt. No one delivers fuel to the gas stations or the airports. Cars are stranded. Airplanes cannot fly. Trucks remain at their points of origin. Food never reaches the cities; grocery stores close. Businesses are locked and then looted. No one comes to work at the power plants or the substations, no one removes fallen trees from electrical lines. Jeevan was standing by the window when the lights went out.

About the Author: 

 

Emily St. John Mandel was born and raised on the west coast of British Columbia, Canada. She studied contemporary dance at the School of Toronto Dance Theatre and lived briefly in Montreal before relocating to New York.

She is the author of five novels, including The Glass Hotel (spring 2020) and Station Eleven (2014.) Station Eleven was a finalist for a National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, won the Morning News Tournament of Books, and has been translated into 34 languages. She lives in NYC with her husband and daughter.