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Cloud Atlas

On sale

28th August 2014

Price: £10.99

Selected:  Paperback / ISBN-13: 9780340822784

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‘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

Reviews

New York Times Book Review
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
Dave Eggers
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
Boyd Tonkin, Independent
Astonishing . . . essential fiction for the 21st century
Michael Chabon
Not just dazzling, amusing, or clever but heartbreaking and passionate, too. I've never read anything quite like it
Evening Standard
It takes only a few pages of any part of this masterful feast of a novel to make you want to read the rest
Big Issue
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
100 best books of the 21st century, New York Times
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
Guardian
Remarkable . . . it knits together science fiction, political thriller and historical pastiche with musical virtuosity and linguistic exuberance
A. S. Byatt, Guardian
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
Matt Thorne, Independent on Sunday
His wildest ride yet . . . a singular achievement, from an author of extraordinary ambition and skill
Neel Mukherjee, The Times
An impeccable dance of genres . . . an elegiac, radiant festival of prescience, meditation and entertainment
Lawrence Norfolk, Independent
A glorious puzzle for the reader . . . Mitchell's storytelling in Cloud Atlas is of the best
Literary Editor's Best Books, Observer
An impeccably structured novel of ideas in many voices
Christina Patterson, Independent
A novel of breathtaking ambition and scale, spanning continents, oceans and centuries
Robert Macfarlane, Sunday Times
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
Observer
His most accomplished achievement to date . . . a novel in the biggest, most exhilarating sense
Daily Telegraph
A virtuoso performance . . . deeply impressive
Prospect
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
Suzi Feay, Independent on Sunday
Gloriously inventive and dazzlingly virtuosic
Philip Hensher, Observer
A thrilling ride of a story
Evening Standard
Funny, exciting, imaginative and energetic
Spectator
Tremendous . . . one of the most shamelessly exciting books imaginable
Time Out
A magnificent tour de force
Irish Independent
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
Daily Mail
Stunning . . . One of those rare books that manages to be enormously clever while resisting the temptation to show off
Times Literary Supplement
Reassuringly excellent
Sunday Independent
This isn't just one brilliant book, it's a collection of six completely different brilliant books
Financial Times
Engrossing
Elle
Mind-bogglingly good