The novel moves seamlessly between timelines, taking us from the eighteenth century to the distant future, and each story is told in a different writing style, including speculative science, post-apocalyptic and mystery thriller fiction. And as you read you become aware of a link (in the shape of a comet-shaped birthmark) connecting each narrator, and how the actions of each affects the lives of future incarnations. The joy in reading this novel is found in the complete engagement experienced whilst reading the six interlocking stories. 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. The novel features six characters in interlocking stories, each interrupting the one before it: 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.

In fact, I loved this novel, finding it utterly charming and beautifully written.

I am whole-heartedly on the positive side of the fence. A speculative fiction novel, featuring both fantasy and science fiction elements, it met with an almost overwhelmingly positive reaction. Cloud Atlas, by English author David Mitchell, was first published in 2004.

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