Sea of Tranquility

1. General Impressions

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

• How did you feel about the author naming the novel’s pandemic as COVID-19, instead of creating a fictionalized pandemic?
• What did you think of the time travel mechanics in this novel? How does it compare to other fictional time travel mechanics you are familiar with in books, film, or television?
• Are you satisfied with the end of the novel, when Gaspery becomes Alan, triggers the anomaly, and perpetuates the time loop?
• How does this novel compare with Station Eleven, another of Mandel’s popular books that also features a future society beset by pandemic?

2. Personal Reflection and Connection

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

• What do you think about Gaspery’s interventions into people’s lives? For instance, he uses his knowledge of the 2203 pandemic to save Olive. Regardless of the rules of the Time Institute, do you think tinkering with fate is ethical? If you had the knowledge to prevent a tragedy, would you choose to tinker with fate?
• In this novel, the characters question reality and the nature of what is real. What do you think makes something “real”? Try to be as specific as possible.
• Though Gaspery was not born on earth, he experiences a sense of home when he visits. Have you ever experienced a sense of home in a place you were not born or raised? What was this place, and why do you think you experienced that feeling there?
• Do you agree with Gaspery that a “life lived in a simulation is still a life” (246)? Why or why not? What factors go into your opinion? How do they compare with the factors that go into Gaspery’s opinion? Would your opinion change if you were raised as he was?

3. Societal and Cultural Context

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

• In what ways does Mandel’s book reflect its composition during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the early 2020s? What aspects does Mandel take from this real event, how does she fictionalize them and their aftermath, and to what effect? Are the societal and cultural phenomenon and inequities revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic in real life present in the novel in any way?
• In theory, a novel with a time travel mechanism could take place in any time period. Why do you think much of this book is set in the future, as opposed to various historical moments in the past? Why are future temporal settings important to the novel?
• This novel takes place in a future in which humans have colonized parts of space. Considering both the novel’s representation of this colonialism and contemporary, real-life incentives to “colonize Mars,” etc., what are the ethics of colonizing space? How does the reason characters in the novel spread into space contrast with the reasons people want to colonize space in real life?

4. Literary Analysis

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

• Why do you think the book is structured as it is, with the first three parts focusing on Edwin, Mirella, and Olive respectfully, and the last four parts focusing more on Gaspery? What would be changed if this structure were altered? For instance, if the entire novel was told only through Gaspery’s point of view?
• How does your image of Gaspery change as the novel progresses, from the parts where he seems to show up in other peoples’ stories as a side character with first-person point of view, to when he is revealed as a time traveler, to his retirement as Alan?
• Why is it significant to the novel’s plot and themes that Gaspery is revealed to be Alan? How would the novel be different if this were not the case?
• Considering the importance of the moon as a symbol and setting in the novel, why do you think the novel is called Sea of Tranquility? Can there be several interpretations of this title?

5. Creative Engagement

Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.

• Gaspery is born 200 years after Olive, near where she lived. In her life, she was a famous author. Gaspery is named after one of her characters, and in his time traveling, he visits her. If you had time traveling abilities, what types of figures would you go back and meet, and why?
• If this novel were adapted into a visual media, what type of visual media (e.g., graphic novel, film, television show) would suit it best? Why do you think this format is best?

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