Station Eleven (Television Tie-in)

A Novel

By: Emily St. John Mandel

Narrated by: Kirsten Potter

Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse—the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity. Now an original series on HBO Max. Over one million copies sold!

Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.

Look for Emily St. John Mandel’s bestselling new novel, Sea of Tranquility!

©2014 Emily St. John Mandel (P)2014 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

National Book Award Finalist

Winner of the 2015 Arthur C. Clarke Award

One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Buzzfeed, and Entertainment Weekly, Time, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Minnesota Public Radio, The Huffington Post, BookPage, Time Out, Book Riot

“Deeply melancholy, but beautifully written, and wonderfully elegiac . . . A book that I will long remember, and return to.” — George R. R. Martin

“Station Eleven is so compelling, so fearlessly imagined, that I wouldn’t have put it down for anything.” — Ann Patchett

Melancholy, Reflection, and Venison

I can't say what kind of apocalyptic society member I would be. A religious, rapture-ish event... I'd have to brush up on my survival skills, but a nuclear event or count down to Armageddon, and I would place my chair at Ground Zero, because I wouldn't want to be without the people I love, nor would I choose to live in a world where there was not some form of beauty, or sense of community. Alone, fighting just to survive, I would wind up as mad as King Lear. Station Eleven opens with a scene from the Shakespeare play and expands on the themes of survival and meaning.

Opening night, the lead actor suffers a heart attack and passes away. The news that night pronounces the actor's passing, and barely mentions a mysterious illness that has people flooding hospital ERs. Within 3 weeks, 99% of the world will die from a flu pandemic. Forward: Twenty years later, a troupe of actors and musicians called The Travelling Symphony moves from one outcropping of survivors to another performing plays and music. Their mission statement sounds enlightened and magnanimous, an ode to the arts... “Because survival is insufficient,” it is a quote one member recalls from a Star Trek episode he watched as a child. The troupe includes a woman that was a young child in the King Lear production the night the actor had his heart attack on stage.

At times, author St. John Mandel is eloquent with understated visions of a broken world. Her museum of artifacts is a centerpiece that connects people and stories, including the actor Leander. His personal life, his celebrity, is captured there in articles from the celebrity magazines left intact. She doesn't go into the breakdown of society or the aftermath of the pandemic, but focuses on the emptiness and melancholy borne of lost loved ones, simple pleasures only remembered, and the connections that remain stretched across a barren world, traversed by The Travelling Symphony. Here, the author is a mighty gentle giant.

Beyond the difficulties of surviving day to day, there is a menacing group of brutal men ruled by The Prophet, but sadly,he makes only a brief appearance and whimpers away. Just when I was hoping for a little trouble-maker to take my mind off the moping and memories, and roasting venison over burning tires, again. Once you get the general premise, you better be ready to dwell on it. Mandel writes beautifully and has created a world that is eerie and surreal, but I started to feel swallowed by the melancholy. For all the hype, all the great reviews, all the promises that I would be haunted by this powerful story, I wasn't feeling it. From my frame of reference, it's been done before. Mandel thinks outside the apocalyptic genre box, but doesn't enlarge the real estate.

The book stays high centered in that world of reflection, the menagerie of meandering melancholics mourning the past, hoping for a better future, chewing deer meat, occasionally appreciating the arts, coming up with some profound thoughts--wallowing in sentimentality. I recommend the book, in spite of my sarcastic, irreverent nature; but not to hard-core apocalyptic/dystopia fans, or anyone that believes the saying "you can't move forward with one foot in the past." (I think Mr.Spock said that in an episode.) It is a lovely novel, written beautifully-- my head tells me so.

a solid weekend read

This is another entry into one of my pet genres, which I affectionately call "books about books." This one is nominally sci-fi as it is set in a post-apocalyptic world where high-tech civilization has collapsed and in the ensuing, increasingly wild mid-west, a troupe of actors and musicians travel from town to town, performing Shakespeare and symphonies. King Lear figures prominently in the story. A child actor from the opening King Lear performance serves as the main protagonist; the child from the actor playing King Lear in the opening performance serves as the main antagonist. There are several interesting connections between the pre- and post-apocalyptic worlds that serve to entertain. This won an award when it was published and was very well-received. I found it on the light side, though fairly well-written. It is not terribly challenging in style, vocabulary or plot but does gently pull you into the story arc in a surprisingly effective way. Shakespeare resonates through this book, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

A first rate, original and poetic work

Even if you're familiar with end-of-the-world stories like 'Earth Abides' and 'The Stand' this work is like no other. It's tempting to call it Canadian as Canada and American-Canadian issues are a part of the work but that would be inexact. It's a powerful work about time, Shakespeare, music, and love. The crisp delivery of the voice actor makes this particular production a gem.

I was quite bored by the end

This book, While it has gotten great reviews and literary praise, never really ‘takes off’. The historical jumps are badly explained and the motivation of most of the characters is poorly delineated. I wouldn’t undertake another. Honestly, it would have been better presented as a graphic novel...which it strongly resembles, without the great artwork

Good, Literary, Novel, Post-Apocalyptic

This novel was a nice, different take on the post-apocalypse. Nothing profound or revelatory. If we had half-stars, I'd give it 3.5 stars.

More voices, please.

I still think book narration is a job for multiple people. HDs dhd dhd D&D s she s hd

Anti-climactic end to an post apocalyptic tale

I really wanted to like this book, and on paper it’s everything I like in a book. But it just didn’t do it for me. I never really became invested in the characters, I didn’t like the time jumps, and the ending was disappointing. I wanted more payoff for the Prophet storyline.

A magical futuristic tale

I could see how some wouldn’t like this
I enjoyed listening to this book - great story telling - complex characters and a unique story

Potential not met

Actually spent some time trying to figure out why I was so disappointed in this book. The story construct had so much potential, but ultimately fell flat. All I could come up with is that it read like an over edited movie where too much was cut out (or left undeveloped.) Somehow it just felt unfinished, like it needed a couple more rewrites.

Not what I expected - in a bad way

The story is all over the place. While I can appreciate a non-linear story this one was dull and just kept going. The novel itself is very well written and the characters fleshed out but for me it just was not exciting.