Sara's reading log

I am a book hoarder and reader. My main genre is SF, but I also love magic realism, fantasy and general fiction. Favorite authors are Iain M. Banks, Ursula K. LeGuin, Haruki Murakami, José Saramago, Isaac Asimov, Ben Aaronovitch and more. My rating system is based on five stars. I rate books based on my expectations and what a books aims to be. This means that the brilliant 'Fahrenheit 451' gets five stars because I thought it would be good, people said it was good, and it was good, but 'A Closed and Common Orbit' also gets five stars because in its series, in its style, I really enjoyed it and was not disappointed.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

  • Started on: 2010-10-04
  • Finished on: 2010-10-06
  • Read in: English
  • Rating: *****
  • Genre(s): Magical Realism

After reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet I really wanted to read more by David Mitchell. I picked Cloud Atlas purely by chance.
I am not quite sure what to think of this novel. Its setup is six interlocking stories, each story cut in half and interrupted by the following story. They are all set in different (subsequent) time periods, two of which lie in the future. They all deal with the same sort of characters, with strong hints that they are reincarnations of each other. Also, each following story mentions reading/finding the previous one.
Other than that the main theme is power, who has it, why, and how does this influence the life of our characters?
I liked the book, I liked the stories. But maybe the main message is too broad for me. History is cyclic, humanity craves power. But I expected one main event, one big thing tying the stories together. However, the more I think about it, the more the brilliance of the book stands out. And for that reason it gets five out of five stars.
On a sidenote, this was book 100 for me for this year. :-)

  • Started on: 2010-10-04
  • Finished on: 2010-10-06
  • Read in: English
  • Rating: *****
  • Genre(s): Magical Realism

After reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet I really wanted to read more by David Mitchell. I picked Cloud Atlas purely by chance.
I am not quite sure what to think of this novel. Its setup is six interlocking stories, each story cut in half and interrupted by the following story. They are all set in different (subsequent) time periods, two of which lie in the future. They all deal with the same sort of characters, with strong hints that they are reincarnations of each other. Also, each following story mentions reading/finding the previous one.
Other than that the main theme is power, who has it, why, and how does this influence the life of our characters?
I liked the book, I liked the stories. But maybe the main message is too broad for me. History is cyclic, humanity craves power. But I expected one main event, one big thing tying the stories together. However, the more I think about it, the more the brilliance of the book stands out. And for that reason it gets five out of five stars.
On a sidenote, this was book 100 for me for this year. :-)