The Cloud Atlas: A Novel

It was a meh read for me. It started off strong and I slowly found myself caring less and less about the characters and at times confused on what was going on. Maybe it was just outside of my normal preferences. I was hoping it would venture more into the folk lore of the Yupik and a little bit faster moving pace. I got 2/3 through but didn’t finish.

I accidentally downloaded this book after watching the movie that is based on the other book with the same title. I am glad I read it. I lived in Alaska as a kid and was able to visualize the locations in Anchorage and in the bush. The balloon bombs and how the were deployed was incredible. The tension between the characters kept me up and reading through the night.

I really wanted to like this book, the concept was interesting and the main characters caught my attention. But the constant change of tone and time frame (current vs the past, dream? reality?) just wore on me. Maybe I am a bit too ADD! It just was ultimately too inconsistent and I speed-read much of the second half. Maybe the author tried too hard to be fancy. Just tell the story!

This is a serious piece of literature with more ideas and deep thinking than some libraries. Historical fiction at it's finest. Each history course at the college level that I taught included one piece of literature and I guarantee this book would have been a requirement that students would have thanked me for.

Somehow my high school history class on World War II missed the Japanese balloon bombs in the later days of 1944 and early days of 1945; maybe I was distracted by the cutie a couple of rows away. Nonetheless this book (and Mr.Callanan)have rectified that fact. Mr. Callanan spins a fascinating tale of life near the close of WWII involving a Catholic-raised orphan undergoing his coming-of-age, a half Russian-half Yup'ik Eskimo woman doing whatever she needs to to survive and a severly unbalanced Army captain who makes Capt. Ahab look like Walter Cronkite. The story unfolds from the perspective of Louis Belk, the former orphan, now Catholic priest, as he stands a deathbed watch over his "competitor", a Yup'ik shaman, in a series of flashbacks/flash forwards, giving him his confession about the series of events that took place those waning days of WWII. Alaska is a much a character in this book as any of the humans from it's dense cloud of mesquitos that breed in the summer melt puddles to the crystal sharp nights of its winters. A good read, hard to put down.

Not much given to reading of the supernatural, on a few occasions I nearly abandoned reading or decided to delay resuming. Somehow I was always drawn back, to my eventual great pleasure and satisfaction. The novel concludes richly, superbly, and most satisfyingly.

This was not the book I MEANT to read, but it is the book I WANTED to read.Not that I was aware of that fact when I bought it. I believed this to be the book they just adapted into a film. Having no idea what that story was actually ABOUT, going only on a friend's recommendation that the book was good, I did a search for the title, saw that there were numerous options, and picked one, without reading the summary of either, based on some fleeting hunch or logic I can no longer remember despite it having happened less than 48 hours ago.48 hours? Alas... I would have finished it *sooner* had I not been otherwise engaged hauling several thousand pounds of seed at work during what is normally the slow end of my shift. Which is to say... nothing other than my boss or my spouse (...my other boss ;) ) could have convinced me to put this book down. If I'd had the option, I would have simply let the thing take control of my life for an entire night, from the first page to the last.It's THAT kind of book.And as for what I meant about this being the book I WANTED to read? More than being true simply as a turn of phrase suggesting that this was a story I wanted to be told but didn't realize that desire until it was fulfilled (which is true as well), there's a coincidental, more literal element: I'd just finished reading "The Terror" by Dan Simmons, which was a satisfactorily engaging novel that might be better described as a compilation of all known facts about the lost Franklin Expedition seeking the Northwest Passage in the mid-1800's with occasional dialogue thrown in oh and P.S. there's a monster or something. While I liked the book, I was a bit disappointed, since I'd gotten it hoping it would be more like "Hyperion," another book by Simmons whose central monster was the first I've read about since I was 8 or 9 years old that LITERALLY gave me chills and actually scared me. Sadly, the titular Terror (which refers to the monster as well as one of the ships) appears only a handful of times in the near-1000 pages of story, never for long, and its explanation felt anticlimactic after so long being built up. However, that book seemed to find its strength in the last 5%, which focused on a surviving member of the expedition as he fell in love with an Inuit woman and became a member of her society and a sort of shaman, having had to set aside his lifelong devotion to his Christian God to do so.I wanted to read more about THAT. It seemed to me that the book had ended just as it was finally getting to the good part."The Cloud Atlas" is that missing "good part." Engaging, haunting, beautifully tragic, with characters who are magnificently-described and astonishingly alive, this book masterfully weaves together themes of propaganda, religion, and shamanic magic during a time of war in a place where survival is so much its own war there may be no way to tell the two apart... or to decide which one is real.An easy 5 stars, which is a rating I give out sparingly.

I bought this book because I had seen the movie *The Cloud Atlas.* I wanted to read the book on which it was based. This is not that book! The movie was based on the book of the almost identical title by David Mitchell. Still haven't gotten around to reading that one. By the time I figured out that I was reading the wrong book, I was completely engrossed. This is a fascinating read about a little-known WWII initiative, some interesting characters, and a bit of Inuit spritiualism. One of the most enjoyable mistakes I've made in a long time.

I enjoy reading something for unusual and it kept me intruiged as the subject is a small part of war history that is virtually unknown.

The synopsis for Liam Callanan's "The Cloud Atlas" is actually the synopsis for David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas". Read it - it actually names the wrong author. Very misleading. Hope Amazon will correct this soon.When I ordered this book, I thought I was getting the book described. My own fault for not paying better attention, but we were very disappointed with this order. I am now placing an order for the book I really wanted, which is David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas".

I am one of those who thought they were buying the story of the movie! But I enjoyed the book nonetheless. It was a nice surprise as I probably would not have read the book otherwise and would have missed out.

Excellent book! Arrived quickly!

This book is amazing, has everything you could want wrapped around a wonderful thought provocking life story. Highly recomend it