For some, a world without technology is a nightmare. But for Emily St. John Mandel, author of dystopian novel Station Eleven, it's a love letter.
"We have this incredible place with electricity, water that comes out of faucets...all of these incredible things that we take for granted, almost to the extent that we don't see them anymore," Mandel said at January's MashableReads book discussion. "One of the ways to write about something is to write about its absence."
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To honor these modern miracles, Mandel took them away in Station Eleven, a tale about people who survived a deadly plague that wiped out 99% of the population.
The good news is that a world without technology might not be entirely hopeless after all. Throughout the book, Mandel details the resilience of humanity and the ways that we cling to art and culture, even in the wake of disaster.
Check out Mandel's advice on seeing beauty in the apocalypse below.
"I like the idea that our modern world seems more like sci-fi." @EmilyMandel on technology and its absence. #MashReads #StationEleven— MashableReads (@mashreads) January 8, 2015
"It's depressing to write about the end of the world." @EmilyMandel on STATION ELEVEN. #MashReads pic.twitter.com/YPyOjZNSRi— Matt Petronzio (@mattpetronzio) January 8, 2015
"Art represents civilization to us" - @emilymandel on #StationEleven #MashReads https://t.co/XOpnEM6or9— Nora Grenfell (@nlgrenfell) January 13, 2015
My fave bit from the @Mashable Book Club talk w/ @EmilyMandel involved smallpox & impending doom: http://t.co/M3NsxWQpT1 @AAKnopf #MashReads— Kate Gavino (@kategavino) January 9, 2015
"There will always be another pandemic. That's just our history. But we manage to survive." @EmilyMandel #MashReads #StationEleven— MashableReads (@mashreads) January 8, 2015
"I wasn't interested in writing a horror novel. I wanted to write about what happens after." @EmilyMandel #StationEleven #MashReads— MJ Franklin (@heyitsfranklin2) January 8, 2015
.@EmilyMandel turned in Draft 26 of "Station Eleven" to her agent... & then went through more revisions with 3 editors. Wow. #MashReads— Abbigail E. Kriebs (@abbigailekriebs) January 13, 2015
You can watch our full discussion with Mandel about Station Eleven below.