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A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified 'dinery server' on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation -- the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other's echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small. In his captivating third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity's dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us.
| ISBN | 0340822775 | | Pages | 544 | | ISBN13 | 9780340822777
(What's this?) | | Weight (grammes) | 939 | | Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton General Division | | Published in | London | | Imprint | Sceptre | | Previous ISBN | 9780340832370 | | Format | Hardback | | Height (mm) | 242 | | Publication date | 01 Mar 2004 | | Width (mm) | 160 | | Library of Congress | PR6063 | | Spine width (mm) | 48 | | DEWEY | 823.914 | | Academic level | General | | DEWEY edition | DC22 | |
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'Remarkable and enjoyable book' -- Lytham St Annes Express 20050331 '(contains) extreme imaginative fluency' -- The Sunday Times 'David Mitchell has fast established himself as a novelist of considerable authority and power ... Anyone who read his remarkable debut, or its successor, NUMBER9DREAM, will instantly recognise the characteristic moves and bold gestures of this amazing extravaganza. His novels have a gleefully kelptomaniac air, moving from the most tawdry thrills to thunderous, visionary spectacle; they are unlike anything else, and you emerge from them dazed, amazed, unsure of the exact nature of the overwhelming experience ... a tremendous novel ... CLOUD ATLAS is one of the most shamelessly exciting books imaginable ... Mitchell is a novelist who knows exactly what he is doing, and one who is always one or two steps ahead of the reader; and at the end it seems to evaporate like the best dream you ever had.' -- Philip Hensher, Spectator 'His most accomplished achievement to date...a novel in the biggest, most exhilarating sense.' -- The Observer 'A complete narrative pleasure' -- The Guardian '(A) virtuoso performance...deeply impressive' -- The Daily Telegraph '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 compsition...i am moved by (his) talent.' -- Prospect, reviewed by Julian Evans  Be the first to write a customer review
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