Station Eleven Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
A National Book Award FinalistA PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist 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.
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (June 2, 2015)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0804172447
ISBN-13: 978-0804172448
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 7.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3,226 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #1,241 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #40 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Dystopian #64 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Post-Apocalyptic #79 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > Science Fiction
This is a beautiful, haunting novel about the end of the world as we know it (thanks to something called the Georgia flu, which wipes out 99% of the world's population in mere days). The story jumps back and forth between the time before and after "the collapse," and the narration rotates through various characters' points of view. Though the premise (plague apocalypse) sounds sci-fi, Station Eleven is light on the science and heavy on the philosophy. It's definitely much more about how the apocalypse affects humanity and civilization than it is about the details of the apocalypse. If you're familiar with survivalist stories like S.M. Stirling's Emberverse series, this is basically the inverse of that. The author isn't concerned with where people are getting their food and fresh water twenty years post-apocalypse. She's more into the tragic beauty of a fleet of jumbo jets that haven't flown in decades lined up neatly on a runway in the falling snow.That brings us to one of the main themes of this tale, "survival is insufficient." Taken from a Star Trek episode, the phrase is the motto of the Traveling Symphony, a ragtag band of musicians and actors who roam what's left of the Midwest, playing classical music and performing Shakespeare. The ability to create and appreciate art, they believe, is essential to our humanity. It's what takes us beyond mere survival and makes us something more than animals. I loved this part of the book, how the little settlements of people living in Walmarts and gas stations would rush out to hear Beethoven, tears streaming down their faces. This is one of my favorite angles of post-apocalyptic fiction - once we've figured out how to survive, how do we learn to LIVE again? What exactly is it that makes us human?
“Quiet” and “lovely” are not usually words one reaches for when describing a post-apocalyptic novel. Not with the reverted-back-to-savagery cannibals; the road-raging-mohawk-sporting highway warriors; the gleeful told-you-so rat-a-tat of survivalist gunfire, or the annoying mumblespeak “braiiinnnnss” from the shambling zombies. But quiet and lovely are exactly the words I’d use to describe Station Eleven, the post-apocalyptic novel from Emily St. John Mandel that is happily missing all the above and shows the modern world ending with neither a bang nor a whimper, but with a gentle murmur.Mandel’s chosen method of ending the world is the Georgia Flu, an incredibly virulent bug that wipes out 95+ percent of its victims within a span of 48 hours. In true form for the eventual tone and shape of the novel, though, Mandel opens not with a mass of deaths but instead with one very singular, very hushed one: famed movie star Arthur Leander, who dies of a heart attack on stage while performing King Lear in Toronto. A young EMT in the audience, Jeevan, first tries to resuscitate Arthur, and then, when the ambulance crew takes over, has an few moments of awkwardly trying to comfort the young child actress, Kirsten, who saw the whole thing. It is while Jeevan is walking home, his girlfriend having abandoned him at the theater, that one of his friends from the city hospital calls to warn him of the flu currently rampaging through the local hospitals and it is this that saves Jeevan’s life.The story moves back and forth in time.
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