Finished: Station Eleven (St. John Mandel) A super good book about a modern day group of Canadians who are only a handful of the survivors left after a flu pandemic wipes out 99.9% of the world population. With no families, no electricity, no gasoline, no Internet, no phones, no medicine, etc., people are forced to survive in what rapidly becomes a hostile environment in most places. The story begins with the death by heart attack of 51 year old famous actor Arthur Leander as he performs the title role of King Lear on stage in Toronto. After his quick death, it suddenly becomes apparent that people are dying all over the word within 48 hours of contracting the deadly Georgian Flu. Several people related to Arthur survive, and we see their stories all come together. Kirsten, an eight year old actress in the company, is the only one in her family to survive and twenty years later she is part of a traveling acting and symphony troupe. She carries with her few memories of her life before "Year 1"...but she remembers Arthur, as she watched him die on stage that night...and one of her few possessions is the set of Dr. Eleven comic books he gives her that were written and illustrated by his first ex-wife, Miranda. Jeevan, the young man who hops up from the first row of the audience and tries to perform CPR on Arthur, also survives after getting a phone call from his best friend, who is an ER physician, telling him to leave town because people are dying all around him. Instead, Jeevan gathers all the food and water he can and locks himself in the high rise apartment of his paraplegic brother, Frank. After nearly two months, figuring it's safe to venture out, Frank makes Jeevan promise to go and see what civilization is out there, and then Frank takes his own life. Arthur's best friend since college, Clark, miraculously gets on an airplane in New York headed for Toronto on which no one has been infected by the virus. Midway through the flight, which Clark has taken to get to Arthur's planned funeral, the flight is diverted to Severn City in Canada where that group of people ends up making a new home and community out of the uninfected airport for the next twenty years. Also on that flight...Arthur's second ex-wife, Elizabeth, and his eight year old son, Tyler. Tyler and his mother rely on just the bible and Tyler's copies of the same Dr. Eleven comic books for guiding their lives. They believe they have been spared by God because they are good. They leave the airport community after two years, and by the twentieth year, Tyler has become this religious cult leader known as the Prophet, who uses violence to get his way and takes young pre-teen girls as his brides. :-( Eventually, Kirsten and the Prophet cross paths and have a confrontation that ends in the death of the Prophet, thank goodness...but Kirsten can't believe it when she finds a page from the Dr. Eleven comic books series in his possession. Kirsten and her troupe ends up spending five weeks at the Severn City airport community where she meets Clark and they realize their connections to each other via Arthur. Most importantly, Clark, now 71, takes Kirsten up to the air traffic control tower and shows her something amazing through a telescope. There is a small city in the north that appears to have street lights on! Someone has figured out electricity. This gives them all hope and Kirsten and the traveling troupe head there next to explore. Kirsten leaves one of her Dr. Eleven comic books at the airport with Clark where he has established a museum of modern items that are now obsolete...iphones, credit cards, stiletto heels, car engines, rare newspapers, etc. I had hoped that Jeevan would also end up at Severn City, but he does have a happy ending. After walking a hundred miles when he started off on his journey, he met with a different group of people and he is now married with two children...and he's considered to be the closest thing to a doctor for miles around. He had decided after trying to save Arthur all those years ago to become a paramedic. And Arthur's first wife, Miranda, does not survive the pandemic, but each time we see her story in flashback we are treated to how the story of Dr. Eleven, who lives on Station Eleven with his dog Luli evolves. Anyway....I was surprised at how drawn in I was by this book! I spent all day reading it. A really scary, eerie idea...but lots of food for thought!