What's so incredible? Why is she so awesome? How does she do it?

Finally got around to reading Cloud Atlas. It isn’t bad, but it didn’t look good at the onset; the first story “The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing” was so boring (despite being about vampires) I nearly put the book down then and there. But it got better. My favourite was the clone-wrought future of Somni~451 in ultra-consumer Korea. And the book’s six different tales are told in ascending, than descending order, which is a really nice touch.

My biggest qualm? It dragged in places, the writing was (purposefully) inconsistent, and “Sloosha’s Crossin’” was too difficult to read for me to stick with it. But the interweaving of certain elements — the comet birthmark, “Cloud Atlas Sextet,” and each narrative showing itself as literature in another — kept me pushing through to the end. And Luisa Rey and Timothy Cavendish are highly entertaining characters.

The constant flag of Buddhism and a few nagging hints make it clear the six stories are the tales of the same soul reincarnated in different eras. If you believe that, it becomes twice as intriguing. Otherwise it’s just six disparate stories that never interact.

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