num_pages: 509
description: A postmodern visionary who is also a master of styles of genres, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian lore of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending philosophical and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami, and Philip K. Dick. The result is brilliantly original fiction as profund as it is playful. Now in his new novel, David Mitchell explores with daring artistry fundamental questions of reality and identity.Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. . . .Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter. . . . From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life. . . . And onward, with dazzling virtuosity, to an inglorious present-day England; to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history.But the story doesn’t end even there. The narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.As wild as a videogame, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon.
language: English
title: Cloud Atlas
titlecomplete: Cloud Atlas
characters: Robert Frobisher, Rufus Sixsmith, Bill Smoke, Timothy Cavendish, Joe Napier, Jocasta Ayrs, Vyvyan Ayrs, Javier Gomez, Zachry, Yoona-939, Ernie Blacksmith, Meronym, Dr. Goose, Mr. Meeks, Autua, Adam Ewing, Luisa Rey, Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, Hae-Joo Im, Old Georgie, Isaac Sachs, Fay Li, Nurse Noakes, Sonmi~451
genres: Historical Fiction, Historical, Dystopia, Literary Fiction, Novels, Science Fiction, Literature, Fantasy, Fiction, Contemporary
ratings_count: 244411
places: Maui, Hawaii, Neerbeke, West Vlaanderen, Seoul, South Korea, England, London, England, South Korea, The United States of America, Belgium, Chatham Islands, Buenas Yerbas
awards: awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Booker Prize, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Nebula Award
category: Best Novel, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Locus Award
category: Best SF Novel, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Arthur C. Clarke Award, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: James Tait Black Memorial Prize
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: British Book Award
category: Best Read of the Year, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, awardedAt: 1230796800000
name: Tähtivaeltaja Award, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: The Rooster -- The Morning News Tournament of Books
publisher: Random House