Station Eleven: a post-apocalyptic tale of survival and hope, now an HBO Max series

well written, but does not bring anything new to the table. Well, if you ever wondered what english mayors and liberal arts students would be doing after a virus wiped out 99.9% of humanity - than this is the book for you. Hard to believe how they could not not starve, but well... For a more serious take on the subject i'd recommend "The Road", "Earth Abides" or 'canticle for Leibowitz'. Half the book plays before the pandemic, describing how some movie star got his career going and got divorced 3 times. clean slate? not so much - all key protagonists are hung up on the past. Which wouldn't be a healthy mindset in the long run, I'd say. Curiously, the author is of the same opinion. Most annoying (to my taste): time and again the protagonists moan/reminisce how awesome electricity/refrigerators/air conditioning/what have you... was (20 years after the pandemic mind you) - and none of them has the skills or aptitude to do anything about it - i.e. getting a windmill to generate electricity. just poking fun at someone who actually tries. By the way, just hoarding knowledge, museum style, without putting it to use, gets civilization exactly nowhere ---> see canticle for Leibowitz' And finding out who tried an unsuccessful resuscitation on a movie star - right before everyone died anyway - does not get electricity flowing either... but our protagonists have their priorities. which are digging out 20 year old gossip magazine rather than text books...

The author has a wonderfully original talent at weaving the threads of different storylines seamless less across the past and present. It certainly was a book that made me think deeply about life. I expected a page turner, but if you are looking for the walking dead this is not it. It has more of a Cannes award winning movie slow aced type of vibe.

This is an unusual post apocalypse story, nominally about the world 20 years after a deadly flu epidemic. It's surprisingly gentle given the death of so many people, and the world is interesting and perhaps more realistic than standard in the genre. For me however the beauty was marred by a focus on storylines from before the apocalypse, of rich and unrelatable people. The interesting world was under used, and related to the title concept of Station 11 in a way that felt flat and disappointing.