Abhi's Reviews > Sea of Tranquility

This book is a slow-burn soft sci-fi with philosophical and spiritual undertones.

It explores time-travel, extra-terrestrial colonies and the universe as a simulation, but seeing the other reviews, your experience will differ on what your expectations are. This is NOT hard sci-fi. Rather, the sci-fi parts of it are just tools to explore humanity, destiny, mortality and loneliness. In fact, the reading experience was quite tranquil and meditative, and the style of prose is simple and accessible, while simultaneously being rich, poetic and filled with subtext.

There are stories of people from multiple timelines. A imperial era British man who is exiled to Canada and falls in love with its lush beauty and contemplates his future on this new land. An American woman in the modern-era, who wishes to track down and reconcile with an old former friend. An author from a moon colony in the future who visits the earth for a book tour, and her loneliness reminiscent of the times of a pandemic - what her book is about. And all of their lives are connected by time-travel.

This book explores a lot of things - loneliness being a major one - loneliness in a pandemic, loneliness in the wilderness, loneliness of exile and lost connections. And yes, my suspicion was right, this was written around the Covid-19 lockdowns. But it is not a tragic book, but rather is incredibly hopeful and life-affirming.