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Station Eleven cover art

Station Eleven

By: Emily St. John Mandel
Narrated by: Jack Hawkins
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Editor reviews

The Travelling Symphony, a group of musicians and actors, wander what remains of Planet Earth after a global pandemic has decimated the population, performing musical acts and Shakespearean skits for pockets of survivors who have managed to rebuild. Life has slowly settled into some semblance of normalcy — but with a new danger rising, any illusion of safety is soon shattered. 

Told through the voice of multiple characters (each performed with distinction by narrator Jack Hawkins), Station Eleven is a twisting novel that jumps back and forth from the early days of the outbreak to the crumbled aftermath. It’s a stark, brilliantly crafted post-apocalyptic tale that is both adored by fans and celebrated by critics, evidenced by its 2015 Arthur C. Clarke Award win.

Summary

Winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2015

Day one: The Georgia Flu explodes over the surface of the Earth like a neutron bomb. News reports put the mortality rate at over 99%.

Week Two: Civilization has crumbled.

Year Twenty: A band of actors and musicians called the Travelling Symphony move through their territories performing concerts and Shakespeare to the settlements that have grown up there. Twenty years after the pandemic, life feels relatively safe. But now a new danger looms, and it threatens the hopeful world every survivor has tried to rebuild.

Moving backwards and forwards in time, from the glittering years just before the collapse to the strange and altered world that exists twenty years after, Station Eleven charts the unexpected twists of fate that connect six people: famous actor Arthur Leander; Jeevan, a bystander warned about the flu just in time; Arthur's first wife, Miranda; Arthur's oldest friend, Clark; Kirsten, an actress with the Travelling Symphony; and the mysterious and self-proclaimed 'prophet'.

Emily St. John Mandel was born in Canada and studied dance at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. She is the author of the novels Last Night in Montreal, The Singer's Gun, The Lola Quartet, and Station Eleven and is a staff writer for The Millions. She is married and lives in New York.

©2014 Emily St. John Mandel (P)2014 Audible Studios

What listeners say about Station Eleven

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A life, remembered, is a series of photographs....

It all starts with a single death, that of an aging, but much revered, actor, on stage during his performance of King Lear.it was a stroke or heart attack - natural causes, anyway. But behind the scenes a pandemic is growing, within weeks weeping away almost the entire population of the world. We are spared the gruesome telling of the deaths. Instead, the author weaves an intricate tapestry of lives before and after the depopulation event of people who at some point touched that of the actor, some intimately and others for only a few moments.
This is an apocalyptic story like no other I have read. No zombies for a start. And almost without the graphic scenes of violence such a book would leave us to expect. Instead it is full of tensions, excitement, memories, friendships and fears of losing ones much loved. Of survival, too, and of hopes, dreams and a comic book. Because survival alone is not enough.
This is a book which makes us aware of what we have and what could all be lost, what we value most, what we leave undone. And how, even in the worst of situations not only can still more be taken away but that there is also hope and comfort in the little things so easily overlooked in this, our present world of plenty.

A wonderful book, beautifully written, skilfully crafted and achingly memorable, all perfectly narrated by Jack Hawkins. As with the novel, I cannot praise his performance more highly.

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33 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Well written but annoying boring

Well written but annoyingly boring.
Can't understand why this made so many best book lists. It's not engaging, and after finishing it I don't understand why I should have read it.
The good is the visualisation of the world. It really paints a picture for the reader, and this I can't fault.
The bad are the characters. The majority are flimsy characters - nothing to get your teeth into, and so you feel no connections to any of them.
The "meh" is the story. In a beautiful world, with flimsy characters, you have a story that doesn't seem to go anywhere. It's what I'd call a pedestrian story - some love this style so they can swim in the words and imagery, but others (like me) need a stronger driving narrative to a tale.
Not for me, sorry.

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27 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Can't Quite Tune Into Station Eleven

I see I'm in the minority on this one! And I can see why people really liked it because it's clever, a little sophisticated and it's refreshing that the apocalypse - in this case a deadly flu - wasn't the main attraction. Instead it's used as a vehicle to engineer a quite unique past and present combination for the characters.

My problem was that I bought into the post-apocalypse story line in a big way but not the in-depth rendition of the characters in the normal world prior. That just didn't interest me at all. So, I ended up getting a much smaller dose of the part I was interested in.

All a matter of taste of course and I do very much see why others liked the book so much but the Hollywood Lives aspect of the plot was not something I could relate to. I wouldn't want to put people off because it's clever and a little original - I just wanted more of the Symphony and less of the overture.

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24 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Not just another dystopian novel

Would you listen to Station Eleven again? Why?

Yes. It was well narrated and very well written.

What other book might you compare Station Eleven to, and why?

The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell. Perhaps because I read them back to back but it's another novel that transcends the genre by being character driven, therefore appeals to people who may not be fans of science fiction.

Any additional comments?

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Although the premise is a dystopian science fiction novel, Station Eleven is a character driven plot. The book switches back and forth between several narrators, both before and after society crumbles due to the onset of a massive flu epidemic. The characters’ lives all intertwine in some way or another, some straight away, others not until the climax of the book, but all their lives seem to have been affected by the movie star Arthur Leander, whose death marks the beginning of each of their journeys. The dystopian element of the book provides a background upon which each individual is shaped, rather than being the driving force of the plot, so if you’re not a fan of science fiction or dystopia, it really doesn’t matter because this is a book about people and how their lives interconnect in a world without modern connections.

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20 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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What if...

Any additional comments?

Have just finished this a minute ago, and feel compelled to write my first review on here: Deep sigh; deep thoughts; it will stay with me a long while... This story and the narration have rendered me wistful and reflective. I am sad to say goodbye to this book. Survival is definitely not enough...The title and the thought of a post-apolcalyptic sci-fi story made me hesitate at first: Don't judge a book by its title! I'm so glad I ignored my hesitations and listened to this wonderful story - in two days! (My house is immaculate!) The title of course becomes clear in time and is completely fitting.Thoroughly recommended, will leave you thinking...what if...

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17 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Evocatively Portrayed End of the World...

Well not actually the end of the world, but the end as we know it. In my opinion Emily St. John Mantel writes about a terrifying (and yet wonderful and exciting* in its way) scenario brilliantly. The main characters - who's lives, past and present are intertwined in a series of flash backs and flash forwards - are well portrayed - and I cared about them. For once, an author who writes about "what if" as I think it really might be. Who considers the thoughts and feelings of people caught up in an event as huge as this. Initially numbed and shocked, but later somewhat desensitized. Well thought out consequences from the end of civilization as we recognize it. There are no zombies and only a little scary tension but this stands as one of my favorite books in the post apocalypse genre. Excellent!

I'd love more in this genre from Emily St.JM because she captures it so well.

Jack Hawkins' narration really is excellent - so much so I've started digging around to see what else he has been involved with.

* - As a bit of a misanthrope who despairs at what I see as the overpopulation of Earth by mostly uncaring mankind - at huge cost to the natural world and environment - there IS something uplifting at the idea of a planet with a tiny fraction of our previous numbers. I'm conveniently ignoring the suffering which took place to make the transition to that point.

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17 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

“survival is insufficient”

"The more you remember, the more you've lost,"
A book with a difference and lots of heart and thoughts to share with it’s readers, a pleasure to discover and visit in the magical safety of our time.
Arthur Leander an aging actor; is the center of this book and the first death in a story where 99% of humanity dies of Georgia Flu within days of his departure. Jeevan, a one-time journalist turned trainee paramedic was there at his death and gets the news of the epidemic, 20 year on he is a curator of humanities artifacts. Kirsten Raymonde, an 8-year-old actress is also present at Leander’s death, 20 years later she is a performer with the symphony that travels the post apocalyptic world. This coincidences and synchronicities are the structure of the book and is a thing of beauty to see how well Emily St John Mandel has constructed this novel.
This is a meditation of our now through apocalips, a celebration of the everyday miracles of modern life, like electric lights, planes, the internet, medicine and all the other things and comforts we take for granted. A remembrance of things not past but ignored because we have them. But it is also a reminder of how stars use to light up the sky, and how the the world was wild and beautiful but unforgiving.

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16 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Well written but ultimately falls flat

The story describes life both before and after the georgia flu - a virus that wipes out life as we know it. This is where my opinion divides. The author describes modern life and all its trappings well, and I could really feel the fear of watching the world descend into chaos and then emptiness.

In contrast to this, the characters in the post apocalyptic story never really drew me in. The running themes that link the old and new world seem promising at first, but in the end it all just fizzles out.

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Awful narration

Couldn’t listen more than three chapters. What on earth are those attempted accents all about? Shame as the story seemed good.

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting twist and good narration

Any additional comments?

I was positively surprised by Station Eleven. I expected the story to be more like one of those apocalyptic tales: humanity ceases but some survive and found a new civilisation out in space. Station Eleven is nothing like that. The story follows a hand full of survivors back and forth in time and how they cope with the burdens of life before, during and after the outbreak. The pandemic however isn't the main subject, it's just a circumstance.
I quite enjoyed the narration too, Jack Hawking has done a good job there.

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10 people found this helpful