Cloud Atlas
- 544
- Pages
- about 10 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 3 weeks on the list
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Our view
“Cloud Atlas” nests six stories inside one another, each in its own style, and much of its pleasure is working out how they connect. They run from the nineteenth-century South Pacific to a far post-apocalyptic future. Some readers do not take to every story equally and hope for a grander finale than the book provides. It rewards patient readers who enjoy structure as much as plot.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Cloud Atlas, published in 2004, is the third novel by British author David Mitchell. The book combines metafiction, historical fiction, contemporary fiction and science fiction, with interconnected nested stories in different writing styles that take the reader from the remote South Pacific in the 19th century to the island of Hawaii in a distant post-apocalyptic future. Its title references a piece of music by Toshi Ichiyanagi.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.0 across 1,013 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 87% of the weight and the score stays at 8.0 — the Science fiction average of 7.8 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.9 | 87 | 9% |
| Hardcover | 8.0 | 926 | 91% |
Frequently asked
How long is Cloud Atlas?
It has 544 pages — longer than 52% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Science fiction — with scores between 7.9 and 8.0, closest to this book.
