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Station Eleven cover art

Station Eleven

By: Emily St. John Mandel
Narrated by: Jack Hawkins
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Editorial 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.

Publisher's 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
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good book if you dont think about it too much

It focuses on the characters rather than the post apocalypse. It sets them up quite well, but the payoff isnt that great.

There are some things that dont make sense (lack of electricity for 20 years), but it can easily be ignored.

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6 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Brilliant

So well written and such great character , and not about the end of the world but so much more , full of life’s overlapping , wish it hadn’t ended .

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2 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

disappointing

First, it was near impossible to get past the narration. voice actor uses same inflection for all women and children, making them sound like they have a brain disorder. Broke immersion of the book everytime.
As for the story, it hints at something interesting but ultimately missed the mark. there are so many characters and the time line changes so much it's difficult to keep track of what's relevant. I also found the main protagonist very anti climatic. Hints at an interesting world with an underlying message i just couldn't get interested in.

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2 people found this helpful

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

Surprisingly good

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It kept a nice pace and the character development was really good. I don’t normally enjoy this type of book but found the writing was great and enjoyed the characters and how it all tied together. The focus wasn’t on the actual apocalyptic event rather the aftermath for people.
Loved it. Give it a burl

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2 people found this helpful

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

This story draws you in.

I read this book first and then downloaded the audio book a few months later. The narrator’s Canadian accent changed my perception of characters and events for the better and I was able to appreciate the story in a different way. I love the understated nature of the writer’s post apocalyptic world. The threats and dangers are there, but there’s a sense of hope that if civilisation ended, we might just find enough common humanity to form communities and reasons to live. I also loved the time jumps back and forth to slowly reveal stories. The interconnected plots felt realistic and never too contrived. I’d recommend this book to anyone.

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2 people found this helpful

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

wonderful words

a romantic account of the end of civilization, beautifully written and lovely crafted. but as a boringly practical person I found that myself asking "where are all the solar panels?!"

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2 people found this helpful

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

I listen to this book a second time

I have recommended it to lots of other people loved every second of it. Got even more out of it the 2nd reading

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2 people found this helpful

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

Good performance of a unique story

This book is an unusual take on the post apocalypse genre. The writing is good, but all the characters are flat and under-developed. The book opens with the death of Arthur, an actor, and a boring character with who e spend far too much time. He is also for some reason connected to virtually every other main character in the book. This is clearly important to the author, but seems contrived to me, and not worth the payoff, particularly since we don’t have a very deep insight into what the characters are thinking and their motivations. If the book aimed for a more magical realism-type setting, this contrivance would be more palatable, as well as the fact that humans take decades to re-activate even basic electrical appliances services post-apocalypse, and choose to live in uncomfortable large buildings, like an airport.

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1 person found this helpful

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

fantastic, emotional, intense

Station Eleven was a fantastic read/listen. The jumps around in time and place can be disorienting, and there are some characters that seem to bare no relevance to the story, and one character that was not well enough explained to be believable.

Overall, though, I loved it. The detail, the writing, the intensity... One of, if not the best tale of the end of the world as we know it.

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1 person found this helpful

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

Undeniably good

This post plauge world is full of life and vivid characters that you can't help but love. A band of travelling performers and a past that is still so fresh but the world is different and there are new challenges to face. I haven't read a book so wonderfully gripping in so long. Jack Hawkins voice is smooth and easy to listen to and I'm a little in love. Interconnected through a past and a present these characters feel so real that I when I resurfaced, my eyes wet from tears, I felt like I had lost friends by finishing. Utterly brilliant writing.

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1 person found this helpful

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