I'd added this to my wishlist but by the time it was available at the library, I'd forgotten whatever I'd read about it that caused me to add it. So from the title alone, I assumed it might be some kind of science fiction book set on a space station. Wrong! Although the Station Eleven in question is indeed a space station, it's one that only exists in a comic book written by a character within the book, which is set very much here and now, present day, when it starts.

This book was written in 2014, but remarkably prescient given that just 6 years later we're in the middle of a global pandemic. The book's plot revolves around a global pandemic known as the "Georgia flu". It spreads rapidly around the world through airline travel. Unlike our current pandemic, symptoms develop within 3-4 hours and most infected people die within a day, so the impact is immediate and extremely deadly, and within weeks has wiped out probably 99% of the world's population, causing a complete collapse of civilization - phones stop working, electricity goes off, gas runs out. Survivors flee the cities and form small town settlements for farming and mutual protection.

The narrative moves back and forth between the present, starting about a day before the outbreak starts, when a famous actor has a heart attack during a production of King Lear, and about 25 years in the future, where it follows a caravan of actors/musicians who travel from town to town performing symphonies and Shakespeare plays. The main characters in the book all have some kind of tie to the famous actor, and the pandemic is illustrated by their various perspectives both pre- and post-pandemic (those who survived it anyway).

Very cleverly written, extremely readable, and VERY topical right now, a clear illustration of what might have been much worse if Covid-19 had been a bit more infectious and a bit more deadly, and what could easily still happen another time. Mostly it's a chilling reminder of just how fragile our current lifestyles are, and how easily everything we take for granted could still fall apart completely when the wrong virus comes along. I ended up reading the entire thing in one sitting, it was hard to put down.