/lit/ - Literature

>>16495181
Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel (2014)
This is a story of various individuals who were mostly at the same location at the same time for the same reasons, and how they lived before, then, and after humanity all but perished. Events are presented nonlinearly and shift between several viewpoints over the course of roughly 50 years. This ranges from roughly 30 years before, detailing the youth of the character who dies in the opening pages and whom every other viewpoint character is directly connected to in some way, to 20 years after. The apocalypse matters less than you may expect, as majority of the after events take place 20 years later, the present, when the world has settled into relative peace, which is to say it's one of the the most peaceful post-apocalypses that I can recall. There are references to the horrific early years, but it's not explored at all except for the immediate aftermath and at a location that seems entirely unaffected by the turbulence.
This is not a story of great people doing great things, or of action, adventure, or otherwise much anything exciting at all. The present is a slice-of-life of a caravan traveling through a region which is in the process of rebuilding following 99%+ of the humanity having died out. The past is how they lived before. Because it's presented nonlinearly, I'm not certain, but I think considerably more time is spent before the apocalypse than afterwards. If you come looking for a plot, or really anything other than a study of lives lived, then you'll likely be disappointed. I'm surprised this did as well it did, considering it does have some genre tropes which by default often excludes it from being considered "literature", but they are so minimal as to likely not appeal to those reading it as "science fiction" or even as post-apocalyptic fiction. It's simply speculative fiction I suppose.
This is something I had been looking for to read and I hope I find more similar to it. It's not exactly what I wanted, though are many moderate issues I have it, but they don't detract much for me overall. I will be reading more from this author and I await the HBO miniseries that is in production ought to release sometime within a couple years.
Rating: 4/5

This is the limited edition cover, as I dislike the standard edition cover.