Cloud Atlas

A Novel

By: David Mitchell

Narrated by: Scott Brick, Cassandra Campbell, Kim Mai Guest, Kirby Heyborne, John Lee, Richard Matthews

Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

By the New York Times best-selling author of The Bone Clocks

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

A postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in 21st-century fiction, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian love 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 profound as it is playful. In this groundbreaking novel, an influential favorite among a new generation of writers, 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 neo-capitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a post-apocalyptic 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.

List of readers:

• The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, read by Scott Brick
• Letters from Zedelghem, read by Richard Matthews
• Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery, read by Cassandra Campbell
• The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish, read by John Lee
• An Orison of Sonmi-451, read by Kim Mai Guest
• Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After, read by Kirby Heyborne

This audiobook is available exclusively as an audio download!

Note to customers: The complicated format of this novel makes it seem that the audio may be cutting off before the end of a story, accompanied by a change in narrator. However, this is the author's intention, so please continue to listen, and the stories will conclude themselves as intended.

©2004 David Mitchell (P)2004 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

• 2005 Audie Award Nominee, Literary Fiction

"[Mitchell's] exuberant, Nabokovian delight in word play; his provocative grapplings with the great unknowables; and most of all his masterful storytelling: all coalesce to make Cloud Atlas an exciting, almost overwhelming masterpiece." ( Washington Times)

"[ Cloud Atlas] glows with a fizzy, dizzy energy, pregnant with possibility and whispering in your ear: listen closely to a story, any story, and you'll hear another story inside it, eager to meet the world." ( The Village Voice)

"A remarkable book....It knits together science fiction, political thriller, and historical pastiche with musical virtuosity and linguistic exuberance: there won't be a bigger, bolder novel next year." ( The Guardian)

A great read!

I've read this book multiple times and cannot get enough of it. Using Audible for my long drives was one of the best decisions I've made. The multiple readers give life to this extraordinary story. Their talent in impersonating accents and multiple characters truly lets your imagination run wild in creating a visual for the story. Bravo!!

convolutes

loved the idea of the clearly well considered story but just couldn't follow the line of it. the 5 or 6 individual stories with extreme accents and or archaic languages proved too much for me. i have given up at the half way mark... may try the movie I'm sad to admit.

Cloud Atlas soars above the trees

Would you listen to Cloud Atlas again? Why?

I am already re-listening to Clouod Atlas to discover the details and twists that eluded me on the first listen. The first listen was an awakening discovery, the second it a joy and beauty like seeing the brush strokes in a Matisse. The exquisit blending of suspense and humour is captivating.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I listen to many audio books while driving and walking my dog so have heard most of the performers before. They are most welcomed guests in my ears and have rarely failed to bring life and depth to the stories they interpret. Careful when you listen in the car because the performances can be enthralling to the point of distraction. I managed to get a speeding ticket when emotionally consumed in the listening. Can I use that as a case against Audible for reckless endangerment!!??

Fantastic - even after watching movie first

The book was very well written. I love this sequence of eve and, the characters, the plot, everything.eve and, the characters, the plot, everything.

Powerfully written & delivered

What did you love best about Cloud Atlas?

The verbal delivery helped to understand the message better than the movie. Understood the dialect much better and was so happy that the parts were read so well.

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Some of the dialects would not have been so well understood or enjoyed if read.

Any additional comments?

A very ingenuous way of presenting the path American society is on now and how it is a repeat of repeats in the past.

Read the Book!

What made the experience of listening to Cloud Atlas the most enjoyable?

The author is a virtuoso of voice. The storytelling is engaging and the readers do an excellent job! The first chapter is difficult, but if you get past that, then you will find the book as satisfying as a Thanksgiving meal.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Sun-Mi, and I can't tell you why because it will spoil it for you.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No.

If you could take any character from Cloud Atlas out to dinner, who would it be and why?

All of them because they all have interesting stories to tell.

Any additional comments?

I hear that the movie isn't great, but the book is excellent. Don't dismiss the book because of the movie.

Fantastic read, great voices :)

Love the theory of this one, how such different stories share such rich intertwining themes.

A little hard to follow

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

There were a few stories that were hard to follow, but overall it was a good listen.

I love David Mitchell

This is probably one of my favorite books. Ever.
The breadth of it and the depth, the inventiveness while still holding on to a in universality is amazing

Driving Story

If you could sum up Cloud Atlas in three words, what would they be?

thoughtful, exciting, interesting.

What did you like best about this story?

While the beginning was a little slow, each story picks up and the second half of the books is absolutely amazing.

Which scene was your favorite?

The 6th story takes place in a post apocalypse and is as interesting as it is thought out.