Cloud Atlas (eBook)

'There exists a tribe of ants called the 'Slave-Maker'. These insects raid the colonies of common ants, steal eggs back to their own nests, & after they hatch, why, the stolen slaves become workers of the greater empire & don't even dream they was ever stolen. Now if you ask me, Lord Jehovah created these ants as a model, Mr. Ewing, aye, as a map.' Mr. Wagstaff's gaze was gravid with the ancient future. 'For them with the eyes to see it.'

A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific Ocean in 1850, a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in Belgium between the First and Second World Wars, a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California, a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors, the testament of 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 a novel of mindbending imagination and scope, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a captivating meditation on humanity's dangerous will to power, and where it might lead us.

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'ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY INVENTIVE WRITERS OF THIS, OR ANY, COUNTRY' INDEPENDENTShortlisted 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 MAILA novel of mind-bending imagination and scope from the author of Ghostwritten and Utopia AvenueSouls 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