Review: Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a complex, ambitious novel which is written with a master's hand. David Mitchell succeeds in creating a series of seemingly unrelated stories and weaving them together into a cohesive whole, each replete with rich character development, environment and plot, tied together with an overarching theme examining slavery of the body, spirit and mind.

The individual narratives take the reader through both historical and fantastical futuristic worlds, each richly drawn and credible. Mitchell succeeds brilliantly in suspending disbelief. And each narrative employs a completely different voice, so that one might be as journal entries, another as a series of letters, one in a futuristic patois which is stunningly complex yet easy to read. Altogether Cloud Atlas is an engrossing, satisfying and illuminating read, one I feel confident will become a classic decades from now.

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