Hello anomaly investigators,

Welcome to the third and final check in of the Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. It was a wild ride and these final chapters are where everything comes together. I've included a summary if you require it below.

Part 5

We’re back on the book tour where Gaspery is interviewing Olive. Olive recounts her experience of the incident- she felt like she was in two places at once. And then Gaspery warns her to leave Earth where she was supposed to die. She does so and every thought plays back in her head that she escaped death. The colony goes into lockdown and everyone is communicating with holograms. Then one day, she overhears a conversation happening in her backyard between Gaspery and Zoey. They were arguing and Gaspery say that he isn’t going to run away from the consequences. Later, Olive sees his name in an inmate list, sentenced to 20 years in a double homicide. She is still trying to grasp the fact that she narrowly escaped death.

Part 6

Zoey and Gaspery reunite in November 30, 2203, in Colony Two. Zoey knows about the breach and advises him, after Gaspery asks, to try solving the anomaly. She helps him get to the location and time of where Vincent Smith filmed it. He experiences it for himself and then travels back to where he left.

Zoey informs him that he is taken out of commission. He begs her to help him so he can get another layer of confirmation and she does, helping him get to 2 more destinations to meet Vincent and Edwin.

He gets the confirmation from Vincent. Then thinks of Mirella and what she told him about his fate in the future.

Part 7

He meets Edwin in 1918 and he is a depressed war hero without a foot. He gets the confirmation on recording from Edwin, then reveals who he is in hopes that Edwin won’t end up dying in an Asylum.

Gaspery decides to return to the Time Institute despite knowing that he could have taken off his tracker and stayed in 1918. He finds out that Edwin dies of the flu anyway. Ephrem knocks him out with a drug and then travels to the twentieth century where he is framed for a double homicide and where he meets Mirella. He ends up in prison where he scratches “No star burns forever” on the walls and ponders about his actions till date.

Part 8

Gaspery is 60 and transferred to the prison hospital due to heart issues. He reminisces about the past before Zoey appears and transports him to 2172 in Oaklahoma city where she sets him up at a farm and tells him she is employed by another organisation with a time machine.

Fearing that he would be identified by the Time Institute, he undergoes plastic surgery. When he wakes up, he finds that he recognises his new face. He learns how to play the violin from Talia. Talia tells him that she managed to escape to the far colonies with Zoey. He gets married to Talia. Talia passes away because of an aneurysm. Gaspery moves to the city with his dog, Odie.

In October 2195, Gaspery plays his violin in the airship terminal where Olive walks past and his past self appears, his first interview at the Time Institute. And that's when he senses that the stimulation is coming apart, as it detects 3 Gasperys - one in the forest, one playing the violin and one about to interview him. He can see the corrupted moment where a wave of darkness appears behind the younger Gaspery approaching him. And then everything was as it is supposed to be. And he realises then that it was him who caused the anomaly.

As he talks to Gaspery, following the script of what he remembers, he thinks about his current life. How he felt when Talia passed on, and his current daily life of walking and seeing everyone go somewhere while feeling that he had already moved too fast and gone too far.

I hope you all had a good time reading this one! Questions are in the comments as usual, see you there!