David Mitchell has fast established himself as a novelist of considerable authority and power... Anyone who read his remarkable debut, or its successor, number9dream, will instantly recognise the charactersitic moves and bold gestures of this amazing extravaganza. His novels have a gleefully kelptomaniac air, moving from the most tawdry thrills to thunderous, visionary spectacle; they are unlike anyting else, and you emerge from them dazed, amazed, unsure of the exact nature of the overwhelming experience. Cloud Atlas is a tremendous novel... Cloud Atlas is one of the most shamelessly exciting books imaginable... Mitchell is a novelist who knows exactly what he is doing, and one is always one or two steps ahead of the reader; and at the end it seems to evaporate like the best dream you ever had. The effect is extraordinary, and mesmerising.
It is a remarkable structure, carried through with great elan and confidence. It is very rare to come across a novel so ruthlessly planned, and yet so unconfined by its formal decisions, so unpredictable in its direction, so convincing even at its strangest, so capable of doing anything to serve its extraordinary ends.`