I’m a big fan of David Mitchell - I devoured Cloud Atlas - although, perhaps oddly, I’ve not read The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, which I suppose is a precursor to this book, so maybe I should have.
But, it it’s not necessary to have done so.
Mitchell’s way with prose is second-to-none.
He can create a world in a paragraph and destroy all your remaining hopes and dreams in another.
He’s also really mastered the multiple-narrator trick.
Each sounds distinct in a way that isn’t cloying, but natural.
Holly Sykes, the principal protagonist of this book is, well - she’s one of the best characters I’ve read in ages.
She’s inspirational, she’s tough, she’s smart.
She’s only the narrator in 2 sections, but features prominently in all.
Here’s an odd thing - with the exception of the epilogue (more in a moment), the narrators are universally dislikable.
The other characters get to shine when someone else is narrating them, but the narrators themselves do not.
When we first meet Holly she’s a bratty teenager - not horrible, but not exactly nice or good.
But, tellingly, you already see the signs of worthiness that the latter narrators will expose.
But Hugo, Ed, Crispin & Marinus are all quite unlikable as narrators, though each gets varying degrees of remediation in the eyes of other narrators.
The primary sci-fi element running through the book is forgettable, oddly.
Indeed, my least favourite section is the primary dénouement, which is straight-up super-hero-immortal vs super-villain-immortal and not terribly well thought through, I thought. I found its own internal rules inconsistent, which is a cardinal sin for sci-fi/fantasy.
But, the book is so good this is easily pardoned.
And Holly.
Holly’s so damn great to read that she makes this section worth it.
Finally.
The epilogue: A post-internet, near-future (30-years-from-now) post-apocalyptic world that is so horrifyingly plausible that it left me fairly shattered after reading.
Honestly, the first 500-odd pages are worth it just to read this - but DO read the first 3 sections at least to give this the real weight it deserves.
Lastly, there’s a nice (I’m assuming) hat-tip in the book to Vancouver’s own Douglas Coupland.