David Stephen Mitchell

Associate Professor in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation David Mitchell

A vast, intricate novel that weaves six narratives and spans from 1984 to the 2030s about a secret war between a cult of soul-decanters and a small group of vigilantes called the Night Shift who try to take them down. An up-all-night story that fluently mixes the super-natural, sci-fi, horror, social satire, and heartbreaking realism

The Bone Clocks

David Mitchell

"The novelist who's been showing us the future of fiction" (The Washington Post), David Mitchell delivers a kaleidoscopic, serpentine masterpiece that navigates between characters, eras, and realms of possibility to weave its astonishing spell. An eloquent conjurer of intricate, interconnected tales, a genre-bending daredevil, and a master prose stylist--David Mitchell has outdone himself. The Bone Clocks is a hypnotic Rubik's cube of a novel that begs to be taken apart and put back together long after the final piece is fit into place. Following a scalding row with her mother, fifteen year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: a sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as "the radio people," Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life. For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics--and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly's life, affecting all the people Holly loves--even the ones who are not yet born. A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence; a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting from Occupied Iraq; a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list: all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder.

Edward Steel

Interweaves six narratives spanning the period between 1984 and the 2030s to chronicle a secret war between a cult of soul-decanters and a small group of vigilantes who would take them down. By the award-winning author of Cloud Atlas. 200,000 first printing.

Excellently written as always by Mitchell, but I found the links to the 'other world' came in so randomly and unasked for that I just didn't care. I regularly forgot this other world existed until it was randomly injected in again. I didn't quite buy the ending of a heartless guy sacrificing eternal life for a girl he loved decades ago. I mean, he was happy to fake his own death and have his family's lives irrevocably altered for the worse, but would trade it all for someone he met on a skiing holiday? Right,

Jayme Cochrane

It got real dry and weird about 2/3 of the way through, but the rest of the book more than made up for it. 

The last few chapters are maybe the most realistic description of a post-apocalyptic society I've ever read. Made me uncomfortable.

César Steven Toribio

The book just got better and better as it went on. The last two stories are my favorites, maybe because they're the ones dealing with the supernatural more overtly, and show how everything connects. The final chapter can be a bit preachy for some, but it seems fitting to the story. Loved how it ended too.

Those two final stories changed my rating from a three to a four.

Kyle Curry

If you are a fan of Mitchell's other books, don't hesistate to pick this one up. For those who haven't read his others, I think this is actually a pretty great book to jump in with. In a very Mitchell way I read this book almost exactly a year after Cloud Atlas. While he employs some similiar time jumping structure here, if Cloud Atlas is Russian Nesting Dolls being unstacked and restacked, then Bone Clocks is most like following a singular thread on a shirt- sometimes you are jumping onto the other threads that weave and pass through it and each other, but there is always that thread you are following- giving the narrative, overall, a much more linear feel.

He also really dives into the supernatural in this book, which is an aspect I loved. The mythology created is a rich one, and used very effectivly. It makes me wish that ABC had used some of his ideas for their new show Forever. But, no matter how vast the universe, Mitchell excells at putting us inside the characters he creates. We always see these things through their eyes, feeling their hopes, doubts, joys, and selfishness. I would often find myself sad to leave certain people behind as the book shifted perspective. 

One of my fav books so far this year, and bring me back to the continual question- why do middle aged white men write teenage girls so well.

Vladimir

Може би този роман е за пет звезди. Може би е за една. Възможно е това да е първата стъпка на Мичъл към превръщането му в нещо като guilty pleasure за четящите предимно “сериозна” литература. Възможно е това да е и най-сигурната му стъпка по пътя към майстор на полифоничния роман, на иронията, на употребата на жанровете за “висши” литературни цели. Сигурно е само това, че Мичъл е безстрашен. Мога да си представя как някой затваря книгата някъде по средата на единствената изцяло фентъзи част (петата, в която благородни пътешественици из чужди тела се изправят срещу зловещи душеядци), потресен от правия текст, изобилието от думи с главни букви и безсрамните диалози (“How, exactly, do you suggest we annihilate our enemy?” “By psycho-demolishing the Chapel of the Dusk.”) Но ми е трудно да си представя как само тази част, макар и най-обемна и пуснала пипала - по-точно: разпръснала свои пратеници - навсякъде из романа, може да се приеме за единствения ключ, в който да се чете историята. The Bone Clocks донякъде продължава да разказва за пътешествието на душите из редица несъвършени тела и светове, започнато в Cloud Atlas и преплитащо темите за престъплението, изкуплението, любовта и смъртта. Към този лабиринт няма един-единствен вход. И ако всичко дотук звучи като отзив за някой литературен опит на духовен гуру, неспирните ирония и самоирония в текста разсейват прекрасно всякакви езотерични и психонезнамсикви мъгли точно в моментите, в които си мислиш, че краят вече е настъпил, че Мичъл се е предал на сили с пазарни желания и подозрителен вкус. Финалът на историята е deus ex machina, но героите са наясно с това и го коментират; сцените с епични битки между Доброто и Злото започват впечатляващо, но завършват случайно, на късмет и с помощта на домакински прибори; има автор на “висока” литература и женица, написала мемоар за срещите си с ангели, но се оказва, че и двамата са от един и същ свят (шокиращо) и даже от един и същ сюжет (ужасяващо). Мичъл винаги е пишел машини. Тази просто работи по-трескаво от останалите.

Lynette Pedersen

This is the first of Mitchell's books that I've read. I was a bit confused with the whole meta-narrative thing, feeling much like a large portion of the story that's being told is a pretty big waste of reading time. However, poking around a bit, I discover that Mitchell's plan is to create an even larger meta-narrative with all of his novels, so I'm wondering if maybe I'll get a more solid sense of meaning (and/or closure even) with some of these stories by catching these characters in his other books. Only time will tell. I'm a fan of story telling that breaks boundaries, provided that the story still works, so I will not write Mitchell's work off completely as not for me, yet.

Much like everything I have read so far by David Mitchell, I loved this.

The last part of the book, "Sheep’s Head, 2043", is one of the darkest, bleakest, and yet most plausible descriptions of a post-oil post-civilization near-future I have ever read, and its ending is surprisingly emotional - I suppose because by then we have spent over 600 pages and 60 years with Holly Sykes, from teenage runaway in Kent in 1982 to grandmother in a dystopian Ireland in 2043, via many other parts of the world (or should I say "worlds" - this is a fantasy novel in many parts).

Mario Menti 

Much like everything I have read so far by David Mitchell, I loved this.

The last part of the book, "Sheep’s Head, 2043", is one of the darkest, bleakest, and yet most plausible descriptions of a post-oil post-civilization near-future I have ever read, and its ending is surprisingly emotional - I suppose because by then we have spent over 600 pages and 60 years with Holly Sykes, from teenage runaway in Kent in 1982 to grandmother in a dystopian Ireland in 2043, via many other parts of the world (or should I say "worlds" - this is a fantasy novel in many parts).

jess

good writing but it didn't draw me in and it was sort of a confusing struggle with all the names and concepts thrown at you and no way to figure out what the hell anyone's talking about.

The dazzling new novel from the bestselling author of CLOUD ATLAS. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2014 Run away, one drowsy summer's afternoon, with Holly Sykes: wayward teenager, broken-hearted rebel and unwitting pawn in a titanic, hidden conflict. Over six decades, the consequences of a moment's impulse unfold, drawing an ordinary woman into a world far beyond her imagining. And as life in the near future turns perilous, the pledge she made to a stranger may become the key to her family's survival . . .

Sian Wadey

David Mitchell is one of the greatest writers of this generation. He manages to create complex scenes and heartfelt characters. The Bone Clocks is no exception.
Our main protagonist is Holly and we follow her and her family and friends through their lives and different eras of time. As with Cloud Atlas, there are certain sections that will resonate more than others. I particularly enjoyed Ed's section, as we followed him in Iraq and the futuristic section with Holly and her grand children. 
It was a great read, although some of it was hard to get your head round. I could have done with some more explanation. I also felt it lost pace around three quarters of the way though. But managed to regain it by the end. And although it was a big book I relished reading it, delving into every word. I can't wait to read more of David Mitchell.

Mary Rose Luksha

This is the best book I've read in a long time. I am a fan of Cloud Atlas, but I liked The Bone Clocks so much better. Maybe because there is more of a definite narrative threaded throughout, or I found the different voices in the narrative more relatable, but I loved it. 

When Holly Sykes runs away from home one day in 1984, she doesn't realize her life will change forever and it's all tied to the voices she hears in her head - the "radio people," and one mysterious figure.

The book is divided into six sections, each from a different character's perspective, but each involving Holly Sykes. I loved that Mitchell doesn't give you a chance to come up for air between sections; once one is finished,the next practically starts mid thought of another character. The voices are so singular and distinct it's impossible not to be drawn into their worldview. 

There's also an element of magic and mysticism that flows so naturally you want to believe it exists in our world too.

Fraser Simons

This book was really interesting. Not all of it worked, but I’d prefer that it make the attempt than stick with something more conventional. 

We follow Holly Sykes from 1984 to 2043, only the first and last chapters are from her point of view. The first chapter, in many ways, is actually really quite impressive. The voice here is my favourite. Young and Irish and full of vinegar, Holly has a fight with her mam about a boy not worth fighting about, as teenagers are want to do. When she concocts a wild fantasy about the two of them running away to London, or anywhere far away, really, she ends up running right into him with her best friend, which sends her into a teenage angst spiral that leads her to run away from home. 

Only, that’s not what the story, nor her own story, is actually about. But it’s also exactly about that. 

There is a through line of the paranormal happening as well. Holly meets people who are akin to her, somewhat, in that she can hear voices. They range from scary to odd, just like her brother Jacob, who hasn’t been the same since recovering from an illness a few years back. 

Holly’s life, however, ends up never being quite what she wanted or expected or aims for. We learn this as the book jumps forward in time across ages. And we see Holly from the eyes of a supporting cast of characters that are actually quite disparate. 

This actually worked really well for me, surprisingly. Characterizing and learning of her life as though she were the sun being orbited by these people, and with a mystery nugget tucked away regarding a family event that occurs that precipitates the jumping forward in time in the first chapter. We don’t really know why Holly is important. Or if she actually is. 

There is a meta level component to this that other Mitchell books I’ve read so far do not (or was aware of at the time, anyway). I’ve read Cloud Atlas and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet which, by the way, should be read before this book because there’s some pretty big spoilers in this one regarding the plot. In this meta level plot, though, we know more is going on with Holly, and the entire oeuvre of Mitchell’s books, presumably. 

I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to, despite the less deftly handled paranormal components to this meta story that directly affects Holly, and which she influences. To what degree, I won’t give away. Thankfully I read plenty of cyberpunk and sci-fi, so the creation of new words and their repurposing for setting is something I roll with, even if some of them probably could have been more intuitive and less dumb sounding. 

The meta interwoven with spots of Holly throughout her life as she becomes older and comes into her own, worked well. We see her contrasted nicely with her teenage years and there is a through line with Hugo Lamb’s choice, I won’t say what that choice is, that harkens back to Cloud Atlas really nicely. I really like Mitchell’s way of slipping into new and old characters, and underlining sort-of emotions and movements clearly important to him, as they reoccur. In particular: Love. 

In the end, Holly’s story kind of feels nicely wrapped up, but also like it’s setting something up. Maybe Slade House has some things to say about these characters yet? Either way, I was mostly satisfied. 

But there were a few things that didn’t work for me. One of them was the overlong chapter dedicated to the writer. Who wasn’t very likeable, though that came along by the end, somewhat. I felt like that chapter could have been truncated, but what’s more is, I don’t think a few questions were actually answered that were raised there? Why did the ending happened, who was that person and the contours of their plan wasn’t ever gone into, was it? There’s also a bit of hand waving with the supernatural happens with plot holes, plot beats, and I’m not sure the soft worldbuilding technique did it any favours.

That said, everything else felt good. The questions raised at the start were particularly fun, when revealed. And the battle at the chapel, because of the way it was written—being that it was hard to describe—did some fun things with my brain. For me that whole sequence looked like a weird animated pastel, very much like the opening to Scott Free Productions movies. Where there’s a man who changes into bird. That whole chapter kept me up late at night as it was just exciting to read and picture in my head. And again, that first chapter really flew by and set up so much payoff without the reader really catching on to how much what happens influences Holly and others lives. 

Also, learning the additional meta stuff about Thousand Autumns, also quite neat and made me think a lot about how the meta stuff could tie into other books and characters. The detriments seem small, compared to the high points I had with this. Will continue on to Slade House next. I’m on a mission to read all of his books now that I have all of them, including Utopia Avenue!

Yulande Lindsay

Complex with at least three different genres and takes concentration but absolutely brilliant. Mesmerizing. This is my second David Mitchell experience (the first one being Cloud Atlas) and I am now a devoted fan.
Highly recommended.

Melanie Richards

Crap, how to rate this one? Enjoyable throughout, but it took a good two-thirds of the book for things to really pick up. The fantasy bits were hard to swallow because Mitchell created a world from scratch, including a whole bevy of new terms casually dropped and explained far, far later. Without spoiling things, some aspects of the fantasy element were lovely to read, and in other scenes Mitchell was trying so hard it was all I could do not to roll my eyes. Then there's the issue of some threads in the plot just being dropped without a further word. HOWEVER, I love Holly Sykes, the end of this story made me bawl like a child, and Mitchell's thoughts on mortality, responsibility, and family are interesting to me. It's one I think I'll need to read again later.

Cindy Lieberman

This is (only) the third book of DM's that I have read and the most enjoyable. "...Autumns of Jaacob..." was beautifully written but dragged on quite a bit. Cloud Atlas was often confusing and it took seeing the film for me to really follow it. "Bone Clocks" however brought together his gift for prose with more clearly interrelated blocks of stories. The fantasy aspect is a minor part of the book that isn't explained until late in the novel. I feel the author is neither as comfortable nor adept with the fantasy aspects of the story as he is with the characters themselves. In the end, I based my 4/5 rating on how well he developed Holly and how invested I felt in her story.

Julie D.

Richard Binder

SPOILER WARNING: 

Don't get me wrong, it's exceptionally well-written and there are stirring passages galore. But the story it was trying to tell eluded me. Mitchell creates these wonderful characters only to swiftly dispose of them in the service of some War Between The Immortals that never quite resonated for me. And then there's some semi-divine intervention toward the end that was meant, I suppose, to tug on the heartstrings, but all I felt was impatience and anger that a character who had finally reclaimed her status as the center of the narrative got shunted aside yet again for some deus ex copout. And what was the point? It's a long, tortured way to go just to get "Mongo only pawn in game of life."

Sunyi Dean

There's so much to like, the writing and voice is amazing, the scope and ambition also amazing. Holly is the most compulsively readable of the characters. To be honest I'd read an entire non spec fic book just about her life. 

The speculative elements felt intrusive and confusing at times, and Mitchell moves perspective in a way that only litfic can get away with (watch a genre book get shot down in flames for attempting that!) I was perhaps less interested in the speculative elements than the real world ones, which had muddled worldbuilding at times and mysterious motivations in excess. 

However, I can forgive those vagaries as a) being an intentional style choice and b) this isn't considered a downside in litfic, afaik. Genre fiction tends to have stricter standards for its worldbuilding than litfic. 

Some of the characters were excellent, even though I disliked them as people. Crispin Hershey was a fucking pathetic human being yet really compelling and interesting, and I did feel sorry for him overall. Hugo Lamb, though was hard to read, I found him so unpleasant. I'm glad he hasnt' got many sections. 

There is just SO MUCH going on in the novel... so many references, analyses, musings, cultural dips and dives, a billion different things. It's long, but not wordy or airy; every sentence is packed. 

I would very much recommend this novel for fans of 15 Lives of Harry August (Claire North) as there are many similar and overlapping themes, but done in a very different way.

Jade Flynn

“For one voyage to begin, another voyage must come to an end, sort of.” 

Such an ambitious novel. I did feel like it got off to a slow start but once it picked up it was a true pleasure to read.

André Nóbrega

A book about people's lives, interconnectedness, how actions and relationships can have lasting or delayed consequences. Hardly a surprise if one knows the author from Cloud Atlas' (the movie) fame. This time around, the life story of the characters is set on a world quite similar to ours but with the additional existence of magic in the form of a kind of telepathy, mind control, reincarnation and other kinds of immortality. This is often a detail, but at other times it's a good way to give a perspective on human lives, on the bone clocks, from the magicians' or immortals' point of view. When others are the powerful and we are but tools, disposable, to use and discard, food for predators, what does our existence look like? The parallelism to real life and capitalism is there for the taking, as are others.

Mitchell's prose is superb and he is at his best on character creation and particularly on both Hugo Lamb's and Crispin Hershey's sections. The value of believable, ambiguous, human characters is immeasurable. On the other hand, the last part of the book has too harsh a change of tone and setting and I had a hard time getting into it's flow.

This was the first book by Mitchell I've read and I am sure to buy another one.

b.andherbooks

A sweeping, twisty, and mind bending experience. I tried (and failed) to read Cloud Atlas some years ago, but the plucky Holly Sykes pulled me through this amazing adventure. I often found myself wondering "Where the f*** is this going!?" and then being amazed a few sentences, then chapters, later. Mitchell does rotating points of view so well here, but I did have my favorites (Holly, Hugo, and Eddie's). I did not really enjoy Crispin's, and the denouement with the "bad guys" wasn't as satisfying as I hoped. This book took on a ton, and I wished the more sci-fi/mystical elements had more time, but I'm super happy I read this.

Daryl Houston

This book disappointed me so very much. I've read all of Mitchell's novels, and even the less solid ones generally feel pretty well written for what they are. The Bone Clocks is I think my least favorite of the novels, largely because it seems so ambitious and heavy but doesn't fulfill that promise. At least the earlier, less dazzling novels are shorter.

Cloud Atlas is sprawling and wildly varying in style and subject matter, but there's a sense to what Mitchell's doing in that book -- experimenting virtuosically with genre and time and voice -- that isn't found in The Bone Clocks, which also dips into and out of several lives that intersect over lifetimes.

The sci-fi elements of the book often feel ham-handed and amateurish. Compare again to Cloud Atlas, in which, strange as the sci-fi sections are, they feel pretty natural and accomplished.

It was interesting to watch some of the characters develop. Crispin Hershey's section in particular struck me as sad and mostly believable. Hugo Lamb's story was less satisfying. The opening section of the book in which we meet a young, foolish Holly Sykes was fairly fun to read, and she certainly grows up over the course of the book, but ultimately I don't find her trajectory very credible (even within the context of the incredible story) or affecting. It's a bit hard to explain why Mitchell gave us so very much of Lamb and Hershey, who actually both turn out to be very minor characters within the broader story. 

This is I suppose a book about how we inhabit our lives and while away the time -- however much or little -- allotted to us, so maybe depicting several life arcs beginning and ending at different points in their respective inhabitants' tenures is sort of the point of the novel. But then in a way, this is sort of the point of most novels, and many do it better than The Bone Clocks.

I've not read any reviews of the book yet, and I figure I may go now and read a few to see what all I'm missing. I'll confess that at times I gave this one less focused attention than I give to books that I find worth the effort, and it's possible that I've simply missed what made this book worth the effort and gave it shorter and shorter shrift as I turned more and more pages. My feeling at this point is that it's a fine, ambitious book for someone other than Mitchell, but that put next to his prior two best novels, it's a far inferior book (is he trying to live the life he writes for Crispin Hershey, I half wonder?). Maybe the main problem with The Bone Clocks is that Cloud Atlas and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet were so very good.

Ben Nathan

Well written, and that's everything good I can say. The thread that ties the parts together is thin. Why any one part of it exists is never justified by another part. I would have maybe liked it if it were just a short story collection but as a novel it is meandering, disjointed, and not good story. It always seemed like it could have been good but was so busy being self important it never got there. I think if the writer could have spent the time writing instead just self fellating we would both be happier because he would have accomplished his goal and I wouldn't have spent so much time on this.

Andrew Marti

Holly Sykes is the common thread through The Bone Clocks. We meet her in 1984 rural England, as a teenager running away from home. She pops up again in a Swiss ski resort in the 1990s, on a global book tour in the near future, in a dystopia Ireland in the year 2043, and in a realm inhabited by demigods that could have been Thor's vacation world. 

The real common thread, and the real star of this book is the imagination of David Mitchell. It is boundless. It's an imagination with no limits. As he takes us across decades and continents, we are introduced to characters who are tremendously fascinating, who are in situations that are completely original.

The plot is hard to summarize, but it involves the lives impacted by Holly Sykes, some mortal, some immortal. The immortals are engaged in a battle between good and evil. This battle is hinted at throughout the book, which is manifested in the penultimate chapter. That battle is out of a superhero movie, complete with goofy terms (chakra-eye, Atemporals, Blind Cahals, metalives) and goofy powers. It's the weakest chapter. 

What makes this book work, however, is the creativity that stitches these characters together: the wild changes in perspective, the clever language, and the depth of their development that makes you care. I've never read a book with this type of ambition. Mitchell is trying to bring it all together, all of the stories that are prevalent in pop culture today: superhero movies, dystopian fiction, political commentary, coming of age stories, war novels. This book is the ultimate mashup. I don't quite understand what he's trying to say about all of these things, but I can't help but be fascinated. 

I have read another of Mitchell's novels (Black Swan Green), which I enjoyed, but this elevates my fandom. I plan to go back and read Cloud Atlas and the others. Apparently many of the characters in The Bone Clocks appear in his early works, as Mitchell builds a thread between his novels. I can't wait to see where that tread goes.

Sarvagnan S

This is an okay book, in that the writing, story, and it's ability to keep you reading are all okay. Some parts of this book could be improved, most notably the ending. It's a good book to end the day with.

The Bone Clocks

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