“Do you know what we do here? Not really,” I said. “We safeguard the integrity of our time line, “he said. “We investigate anomalies... There are several things we’re looking for.” He was quiet for a moment. “The aspect of our work that relates to the anomaly.” He said, “is a continuing investigation into whether we’re living in a simulation.”
I’m Betty Martin with "Martin’s Must Reads" and those are some lines from Emily St. John Mandel’s newest science fiction novel Sea of Tranquility. This novel takes place over several centuries from 1912 to 2401 and in several locations both on earth and the moon.
The one thread that connects all the meetings/investigations is the sound of a violin piece. The story poses several questions: is life, in fact, a simulation? And, if you were able to travel back in time and lengthen someone’s life by warning them of imminent danger, would you?
This cleverly written novel is a little hard to describe, so I will quote from the flyleaf, “When Gaspery Roberts, a hotel 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 time line of the universe.” There’s so much to this 255 page novel, you’ll want to read it more than once.
If you’re a fan of time travel then you must read Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel.
