Cloud Atlas

Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies . . .

A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific Ocean in 1850.

A disinherited composer conning his way into the home of a dying genius in interwar Belgium.
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 along the corridor of history - echoes that change destinies in ways great and small.

In a globe-encircling narrative reaching from the nineteenth 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 p. 40 is intentionally blank*