Apparently more than one book is named The Cloud Atlas, and I actually ordered the wrong Cloud Atlas, as I discovered when I picked this book up at the library. But I decided to read it anyway, because, hey, it came all this way, and it might turn out to be interesting, and wouldn’t it be serendipitous if I ended up liking a book I ordered accidentally? At least, that was my logic.

And I actually did end up liking this book. I don’t know if I would wax quite as poetic as some of the reviews on the back cover did, but it was a good book. It was an interesting story, and it was well crafted, and it had a hint of the mysterious and mystical, which I rather liked.

What would have happened if the Japanese had launched a major attack on the Pacific Coast in the form of explosives-laden balloons? That’s the centerpiece of the book, and it’s an interesting idea; in The Cloud Atlas, of course, the military decides to hush the whole affair up, and that’s where our tortured and confused main character comes in.

This is a book of stories within stories, and complex scenes with indiscernible undercurrents. I liked that most of the characters are imperfect, and that they spend their lives regretting this mistakes. Alaska, where most of the book takes place, is also a very interesting landscape to play with, and I like what Callanan did with it. Not having been to Alaska, of course, it’s easy to fall prey to the Great Alaskan Mystique, and this book definitely cultivated that, but it wasn’t heavy handed or intrusive, so I didn’t mind too much. It’s the sort of story which seemed like it could only unfold in the far reaches of the North, after all, so why not Alaska?

Demographics:

The Cloud Atlas, by Liam Callanan. Published 2004, 360 pages. Fiction.