‘ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY INVENTIVE WRITERS OF THIS, OR ANY, COUNTRY’ INDEPENDENT
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Arthur C. Clarke Award, winner of Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year and a BBC Two Between the Covers Book Club pick
‘Miraculous’
SUNDAY TIMES
‘A masterful feast’
EVENING STANDARD
‘Shamelessly exciting’
SPECTATOR
‘Remarkable’
GUARDIAN
‘Stunning’
DAILY MAIL
A novel of mind-bending imagination and scope from the author of Ghostwritten and Utopia Avenue
Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies . . .
Six interlocking lives – one amazing adventure. In a narrative that circles the globe and reaches from the 19th century to a post-apocalyptic future, Cloud Atlas erases the boundaries of time, genre and language to offer an enthralling vision of humanity’s will to power, and where it will lead us.
*Please note that the end of p. 39 and p. 40 are intentionally blank*
PRAISE FOR DAVID MITCHELL
‘A thrilling and gifted writer’
FINANCIAL TIMES
‘Dizzyingly, dazzlingly good’
DAILY MAIL
‘Mitchell is, clearly, a genius’
NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
‘An author of extraordinary ambition and skill’
INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
‘A superb storyteller’
THE NEW YORKER
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Reviews
Remarkable . . . it knits together science fiction, political thriller and historical pastiche with musical virtuosity and linguistic exuberance
David Mitchell entices his readers onto a rollercoaster, and at first they wonder if they want to get off. Then - at least in my case - they can't bear the journey to end
His wildest ride yet . . . a singular achievement, from an author of extraordinary ambition and skill
An impeccable dance of genres . . . an elegiac, radiant festival of prescience, meditation and entertainment
A glorious puzzle for the reader . . . Mitchell's storytelling in Cloud Atlas is of the best
An impeccably structured novel of ideas in many voices
A novel of breathtaking ambition and scale, spanning continents, oceans and centuries
The way Mitchell inhabits the different voices of the novel is close to miraculous . . . No other British novelist, to my mind, combines such a darkly futuristic intelligence with such polyphonic ease
His most accomplished achievement to date . . . a novel in the biggest, most exhilarating sense
A virtuoso performance . . . deeply impressive
An intense, arcing colossus of a book whose narrative links, supplied by the voices of six main characters, are spun out into a unified theory of everything: history, human evolution, science, the will to power. The voices span epochs, continents, and genres . . . Mitchell has rightly commanded attention for the sheer breadth and energy of his composition . . . I am moved by (his) talent
Gloriously inventive and dazzlingly virtuosic
A thrilling ride of a story
Funny, exciting, imaginative and energetic
Tremendous . . . one of the most shamelessly exciting books imaginable
A magnificent tour de force
David Mitchell may well be possessed of genius . . . As well-plotted, entertaining narrative, Cloud Atlas succeeds on many levels. As political and cultural fable, with an unerring humanist sense of the dangerous will to power that lies at the dark heart of man, it's visionary
Stunning . . . One of those rare books that manages to be enormously clever while resisting the temptation to show off
Reassuringly excellent
This isn't just one brilliant book, it's a collection of six completely different brilliant books
Engrossing
Mind-bogglingly good
Mitchell writes as though at the helm of some perpetual dream machine, can evidently do anything, and his ambition is written in magma across this novel's every page
One of those how-the-holy-hell-did-he-do-it? modern classics that no doubt is - and should be - read by any student of contemporary literature
Astonishing . . . essential fiction for the 21st century
Not just dazzling, amusing, or clever but heartbreaking and passionate, too. I've never read anything quite like it
It takes only a few pages of any part of this masterful feast of a novel to make you want to read the rest
As mind-bending in its ideas as it is accessible on the page . . . It pretty much resists hyperbole simply by being better than you'd ever dare hope
Mitchell's almost comically ambitious novel is indeed a kind of cumulus: a wild and woolly condensation of ideas, styles and far-flung milieus whose only true commonality is the reincarnated soul at its center. The book's six nesting narratives - from 1850s New Zealand through 1930s Belgium, groovy California, recent-ish England, dystopian Korea and Hawaii - also often feel like a postmodern puzzle-box that whirls and clicks as its great world(s) spin, throwing off sparks of pulp, philosophy and fervid humanism