The Cloud Atlas

by Liam Callanan

Set against the magnificent backdrop of Alaska in the waning days of World War II, The Cloud Atlas is an enthralling debut novel, a story of adventure and awakening—and of a young soldier who came to Alaska on an extraordinary, top-secret mission…and found a world that would haunt him forever.Drifting through the night, whisper-quiet, they were the most sublime manifestations of a desperate Japanese balloon bombs. Made of rice paper, at once ingenious and deadly, they sailed thousands of miles across the Pacific...and once they started landing, the U.S. scrambled teams to find and defuse them, and then keep them secret from an already anxious public. Eighteen-year-old Louis Belk was one of those men. Dispatched to the Alaskan frontier, young Sergeant Belk was better trained in bomb disposal than in keeping secrets. And the mysteries surrounding his mission only increased when he met his superior officer—a brutal veteran OSS spy hunter who knew all too well what the balloons could do—and Lily, a Yup’ik Eskimo woman who claimed she could see the future.Louis’s superior ushers him into a world of dark secrets; Lily introduces Louis to an equally disorienting world of spirits—and desire. But the world that finally tests them all is Alaska, whose vastness cloaks mysteries that only become more frightening as they unravel. Chasing after the ghostly floating weapons, Louis embarks upon an adventure that will lead him deep into the tundra. There, on the edge of the endless wilderness, he will make a discovery and a choice that will change the course of his life. At once a heart-quickening mystery and a unique love story, The Cloud Atlas is also a haunting, lyrical rendering of a little-known chapter in history. Brilliantly imagined, beautifully told, this is storytelling at its very best.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II, Historical, War, Book Club, Novels

368 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Liam is the author of The Cloud Atlas (Delacorte, 2004; Dial, 2005), All Saints (Delacorte, 2007; Dial, 2008), Listen (Four Way, 2015) and the upcoming Paris by the Book (Dutton, 2018). He serves in the English department of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and was previously its chair, as well as coordinator of its Ph.D. program in creative writing. He has regularly contributed to local and national public radio, and is possibly the only person now living (but consult your own Venn diagram) who has written for all of the following: the Wall Street Journal (on zeppelins, jetpacks, and touring Paris and Greece with children's books), The Awl, Medium, Commonweal, Esquire.com (on swimming and flying), Slate, the New York Times Book Review, the Times op-ed page, the Washington Post Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Forbes FYI, Good Housekeeping, Parents, Milwaukee Magazine and elsewhere.

His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in a variety of literary journals, including Gulf Coast, the New Haven Review, Tinge (where his story was named one of the Millions Writers Award Notable Stories of 2011 by storySouth), the Writers Chronicle, Blackbird, Crab Orchard Review, Southern Indiana Review, Caketrain, failbetter and Phoebe. Liam is also the creator and co-executive producer of the Poetry Everywhere animated film series.

And yep, he knows all about the other novel that goes by the name Cloud Atlas. To hear him tell it, it's been a fun ride: http://bit.ly/on-another-cloud

Reviews

[Maggard · Rating 3 out of 5]

well...I read an article on the av club about a movie adaptation of "cloud atlas," which was described as having shifting narratives, moving from primitive times to dystopian futures, my cup of tea entirely, and I'm now about halfway through with the same narrator stuck in 1944 Alaska, and yes it's engaging, but I keep waiting for the shifts forward...and it turns out that is a book called "cloud atlas," not "the cloud atlas." I've not been this incited about a missing article since checking out Ellison's Invisible Man in 8th grade.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read some of the other reviews, complaining that they thought they were picking up the book Cloud Atlas, which was made into a movie, and then criticizing this book because it wasn't the book that may have ripped off the title of this one from 2004. To all of you I say: stop it. This book is literature, and high quality, at that. Just because you were disappointed looking for a different type of book doesn't make this one inferior.

This book does remind me of The English Patient, as Kirkus Reviews suggests it might. It explores a part of WWII history that I never learned about in High School. I never knew that the Japanese sent balloon bombs to the U.S. mainland, and even killed civilians in Oregon. Some even made it as far inland as Michigan. The novel describes a tale that begins toward the end of the war, in Alaska, a story of love, madness, and the search for meaning.

This is a story that is quite readable, yet should be savored. This would be a good book club selection.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell is one of my favorite books. This is not that book.

It's also funny that this was selected for my international book club as it is set in Alaska!

I think the people in my book club that enjoyed this book the most really enjoyed learning about the Japanese balloons that came into the United States during World War II, something which was hidden by the government. I had heard this amazing episode of Radiolab, Fu-Go, which arguably tells the same story in a better way. So the parts that fascinated others were already known to me, leaving me with a weak narrative about a few guys in Alaska. Since I spent last year reading Alaska, I can name ten books about Alaska that I enjoyed more.

Enough said, this wasn't the book for me.

[Marian Deegan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I could wish to like this story more than I do. Liam Callanan is a beautiful lyrical writer, and he has discovered an unexpected setting and story in his tale of a young soldier's life in Alaska during World War II. Within the historically accurate drama of Japanese bombs sent across the ocean in hot air balloons, Sergeant Belk's life is tangled with that of a brutal superior officer, the Eskimo woman they both love, and his top secret mission to search the tundra, find, and diffuse the bombs that make their silent way to American soil.

It is hard not to admire a tale that weaves wartime heroism with Eskimo mysticism played out by rich fully-drawn characters in a fresh and novel narrative setting. I do admire the tale, and its teller, but I must regretfully also tell you that despite all of its fine qualities, this story never hooked me.

I don't fault Callanan. That would be a gross injustice. In fact, I'll be keeping an eye out for more of his work. His writing is wonderful.

If you have a place in your heart for Alaska's wild frontiers and hardy people, you should read this book. If you are drawn to World War II stories of all kinds, Callanan has spun one out of untrod cloth, and you have a treat in store.

It wasn't a treat for me, but that could be for the sheerly superficial reason that I am not a hardy enough outdoor girl to be caught up in the sere frigid setting of Callanan's imagination.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A priest, a shaman, and a prostitute walk into a bar...

no wait, or maybe,

Bad guys launch balloons from their side of the Pacific. The balloons are homemade bombs that ride the jet stream on way to their unspecified target. The balloons are designed to inflame imprecise targets. The balloons are made out of a special homemade paper and rigged with a combination of randomness and machines so they will land and go boom on the other side of the pacific. The balloons land in over 10 western states and provinces plus Mexico. The bombs weren’t highly effective. The balloons were crazy scary and caused a damn solid panic. The balloons were secret.

No wait. The priest is “hearing” “confession.” The shaman is dying and leading the priest toward other realms. The prostitute is a half-breed seer looking for her son and other souls.

No wait. faith, higher power, words, transference, spirituality, crying, wolves, ...

What would you do with a cloud atlas? Cloud atlases map the clouds; show connections to water, tears grief; generations, spiritual meaning; cloud atlases illuminate magic when words and drawings fail.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, so I meant to read "Cloud Atlas" which is a different book, apparently, than "The Cloud Atlas" (seriously, how could these books have such similar names?). Anyway, it turned out okay because The Cloud Atlas was a wonderful book. Set in Alaska, it is the story of paper balloon bombs developed by the Japanese. These balloons flew across the ocean and landed in America. The story switches back and forth between two times in the life of a priest - his time in the army bomb squad, tasked with defusing these bombs, and the present, where he is a priest at the deathbed of his friend and nemesis, a native shaman. The story is dreamy and surreal at times, but the images are lovely and lasting. I highly recommend making the same mistake I did and pick this book up.

[Mary Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Cloud Atlas by Liam Callanan is a fascinating story based on the fact that between November 1944 and April 1945, Japan launched more than 9,300 hydrogen balloons carrying bombs that were intended to cause damage in Canadian and American cities, forests, and farmland. Only about 300 balloon bombs were found or observed in North America. They killed six people and caused a small amount of damage, but they were armed and lethal. Told in present time and in flashbacks, by Catholic missionary Louis Belk, the novel uses the story of the balloons as a backdrop to explore faith, survival in the wilderness, and love.

Callanan’s description of the beliefs of the Yup’ik Eskimos and how they can blend with Christian beliefs is appealing. He paints vivid images of the ways touch, love, and belief affect lives and of the ways our environment shapes us. His main character explains: “Please understand, though, I have never debased my vows. I do not pretend to pray to god while secretly seeking contact with the spirits of whales or walruses. I render unto God what is God’s but in my prayers to Him, I have always asked that He make me aware to all things unseen, not simply His mysteries” (345).


Belk goes to Alaska as a soldier, assigned to defuse bombs, but he comes back as a Catholic missionary to search for the truth about what happens during his tour of duty and about Yukon religious beliefs. Orphaned and unadopted, he grows up in the Mary Star of the Sea Home for Infants and children, south of Los Angeles, raised by nuns who “treated us like the grandchildren they never had.” When they give him enough money to go to high school seminary, although, he had “the pure, naïve desire to be His priest,” he instead takes a train to San Diego and enlists in the Army. “The world was on that train, and the world was going to war. …The train smelled like perfume and aftershave and the ocean … I enlisted because I thought it the only other option God could possibly forgive” (84-85).

Being very smart, but a lousy shot, he is assigned to the bomb squad, taught to live by the slogan “careful and correct” (47), and sent to Alaska to serve under deranged Captain Gurley. Gurley, a man who “left Princeton a semester early to work in OSS research and development” (102), speaks Japanese and is “heir to a fortune (from fountain pens of all things)” (102), but Gurley screws up his military career early, using classified information that is a trap, and never recovers. His peers and superiors consider him a joke. Most all information about the Japanese balloons is classified, but Gurley knows they are real and takes his mission to find them seriously.

The woman in the story, loved by Belk and by Gurley, is Lily who says she is part Eskimo and part Russian and that “My father hauled my mother off when I was four or five to “Who knows? They left and they left me” (89). “Lily reads palms and tells fortunes in the Starhope Building, room 219, most days, 5-7. Careful and correct” (47). Lily believes that she has some mystic powers, as does Ronnie, the local shaman.

SPOILER ALERT – THE THIRD PARAGRAPH BELOW REVEALS THE ENDING.

The book is divided into three parts, each prefaced by a partial description of an incident that changes Belk’s life. Belk narrates in first person, from his current position at the bedside of Ronnie who is dying, interspersing flashbacks. Belk and Ronnie have negotiated a type of truce and friendship after years of antagonism over religion, the influence of white culture on the Eskimos, and Ronnie’s excessive drinking. In fact, Ronnie has been working with Belk at in the hospice at the Quyana (thank you in Yup’ik) House hospital in Bethel, Alaska. Belk has arranged for Ronnie to serve as an assistant chaplain (18-19) despite the fact that Ronnie does not believe in God or Catholicism.

Belk has been asked to retire, not responded and is awaiting a visit from higher church powers to persuade him. He believes their concern is his association with Ronnie and the mystic beliefs of the Yup’ik Eskimos. He describes his attitude toward those beliefs in a word: “… the word that’s become a central tenet of my amalgamated Alaskan faith, a word that inevitably becomes part of any religion that spends too much time in the subzero subartic dark: maybe. No one from Outside understands this law of the bush. No one understands how rock-solid principles can slide here; how black and white so inexorably mists to gray” (10).

Ronnie knows he is dying and he wants “to pass on his stories, from one man to another, so they could pass on to still another, and another, so that the knowledge and spirit of the Yup’ik would not vanish from the earth. And …He had something to tell me … A secret. Something I should know, ‘after all this time’ ” (5). Ronnie wants a bracelet that will signal that he is a DNR patient and he wants “no morphine” so he will be able to tell Belk his story. When Belk figures all of this out, he decides to tell Ronnie his story, too, so both will get “release, reward” (21).

The title of the story comes from a book, “a journal, really filled with page after page of drawings, charts and notes: (197) maps where balloons should land. It was originally the property of Saburo, “Japanese, a soldier, a spy, sent behind enemy lines to see if early tests of a frightening new device were having any success” (199). Lily falls in love with Saburo and becomes pregnant with his child, but when the baby comes, Lily has difficulty, and although Ronnie is called and believes his spirit wolf could save the baby, Ronnie intervenes, recognizing and distrusting the baby’s Japanese heritage, and the child dies. He regrets his choice, but cannot make amends more than to try to guide Saburo to a safe place for the child’s burial. They are caught, returning to Bethel, and the soldiers take Saburo’s journal, eventually giving it to Gurley.

Lily befriends Gurley to get back the journal, but falls in love with him. Then Belk arrives and she senses that Saburo has sent him to help her. She tells Belk and then Gurley about Saburo, creating anger in both, and all three end up in the wild where they find a balloon carrying a Japanese boy. Gurley says he wants to blow up the boy and kill Lily, but Belk sets the bomb so that if Gurley detonates it, it will kill Gurley. To his surprise, when he tells Lily what he has done, she runs to Gurley, and both die in the explosion. Just before this she tells Belk that she believes that she has failed Saburo by falling in love with someone else while his spirit and that of their son are wandering, waiting for her help.

Belk believes Lily’s touch enables him to learn the boy’s story (335-341) and Lily’s voice guides him and the boy to the medical care, but the boy dies, too, and Belk goes AWOL until a Catholic missionary convinces him to go to seminary. Belk returns to Alaska, still in love with Lily to do what ever he can to free her spirit. After he and Ronnie exchange stories, Belk goes out to seek Ronnie’s tuunraq or spirit helper, and Belk and the wolf exchange breaths, Belk believes that he is giving Lily’s son, Ronnie, Lily, and Japanese boy the breath they need “to do the work that the spirit world requires” (325).

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was drawn to this book simply because it had the unfortunate luck of sharing an almost identical title to Cloud Atlas. That book has of course garnered critical acclaim and is now a major motion picture, so it came as a bit of a surprise to me that there was also a book called The Cloud Atlas that was published in the same year by an imprint of the same publishing house. What are the odds of that? That appealed to me on some twisted level, though, and I felt compelled to read a book which seems relegated to the status of dirty stepchild in the wake of the other Cloud Atlas's fame and fortune.

This book is a story about a real life last-ditch weapons program implemented by the Japanese at the tail end of WWII. Bombs were attached to what were essentially paper balloons, and these contraptions were floated across the jet stream with the intent of wreaking havoc on the North American continent. These balloons were pretty much the first intercontinental weapons, and they were the cause of the only reported deaths in the continental US caused by enemy fire.

The story blends past and present by relating the main storyline as a series of flashbacks from a present-day character, an Alaskan priest who was a WWII bomb disposal soldier tasked with helping classify the threat level posed by the Japanese bomb balloons. While I really enjoyed the first half of the novel, it quickly devolved into a "lite" version of Heart of Darkness. Just substitute the wilds of Alaska for the Congo and it has much the same flavour, although it lacks the same impact.

[Joanne Kelleher · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you ever wondered what was going on in Alaska during World War II, what with Alaska being a relatively unguarded entry point into the U.S., you might like this book. You will learn that Japan was sending bombs towards Alaska via hot air paper balloons. You will be immersed in the fictionalized version of Alaska in the mid-1940s, a sort of wild, wild West, the last outpost for an inexperienced bomb defuser and his sadistic, crazy superior officer. There is a love triangle, a confession, betrayals, all shrouded in mysticism. The writing is beautiful, but there is a lot going on.

[Ned · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is beautifully written. This is going to stay with me for a while.

A few years ago, I read a fascinating historical account of Japanese Balloon Bombs, balloons that were launched by Japan against the American West Coast during the final years of World War II. This onslaught was kept secret during the war to prevent a panic, and is even now largely unknown. US authorities assumed these balloons, made of rice paper and carrying incendiary devices designed to start fires when they landed, were being launched from POW camps or from Japanese Submarines. They were actually launched from the coast of Japan itself! 9,000 balloons were launched to be carried by the jet stream to America. Over 300 made it. One balloon traveled as far as Michigan. There were only 6 recorded casualties -- a family on a picnic in Oregon who tried to pick up this strange and beautiful object that fell from the skies. It exploded as it was designed to.

Strange and beautiful objects that kill?

This story is all about contrasts. The balloons floating through puffy bright clouds that bring fire and death. A Catholic priest whose best friend is a Native Alaska shaman. The same priest who was a bomb detonation technician during WWII. A brutalized love story set in the majestic Alaskan wilderness during WWII. Fire and Ice. Passion and chill.

5 stars. Really quite good.

[Fatemeh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two 'it was okay' stars

I picked up this book accidentally instead of Cloud Atlas. I realized my mistake by chapter four but decided to give this book a chance anyway because I was kind of interested in the subject matter.

The story is told from the perspective of a priest in Alaska who used to be a bomb-disposal soldier during WWII. The narrative switches between past and present and tells the story of the priest, as well as the soldier.

I've never read a story with an Alaskan setting, so I was very excited. The subject of the Japanese bombs also extremely fascinated me, since I never knew they even existed and I needed to know more. Unfortunately, as much as The Cloud Atlas had gripping information about the Japanese Fu-Go balloon bombs, and although the writing was very beautiful and mystical in its portrayal of Alaska, it wasn't enough. The interesting parts about the bombs and living in Alaska were completely overshadowed by a lackluster romance and dull characters.

It seems to be only my problem, as many people have enjoyed the book, but I would have much preferred for the romance to have taken a background role in the story. It just really failed to make me engaged in what was going on, as I did not care about any of the characters or who ended up with who.

[Mikhail Yukhnovskiy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This debut book by Liam Callahan is written confidently and masterfully.

The name is apt, as the story does at times feel encased in a layer of semi-transparent clouds, now realistic and now, dealing with things which are not quite here or there.. There is a sense of unreality, familiar both in the way we all learn our way through life, especially when confronted with things absolutely out of scope of our previous experience, and in the way, sometimes, during the night one can't help feeling strange presences in the next room during the night, and tries to explain them away with logical reasons.

Sometimes, to keep your sanity, you need to embrace the strange and unfamiliar.

Where speaking about certain writers, you would describe their style as magic realism - usually iin these cases you would mean writers of Latin American descent, but here, is a sample of an Alaskan magical realism.

Amazon synopsis:
"Set against the magnificent backdrop of Alaska in the waning days of World War II, The Cloud Atlas is an enthralling debut novel, a story of adventure and awakening—and of a young soldier who came to Alaska on an extraordinary, top-secret mission…and found a world that would haunt him forever.

Drifting through the night, whisper-quiet, they were the most sublime manifestations of a desperate enemy: Japanese balloon bombs. Made of rice paper, at once ingenious and deadly, they sailed thousands of miles across the Pacific...and once they started landing, the U.S. scrambled teams to find and defuse them, and then keep them secret from an already anxious public. Eighteen-year-old Louis Belk was one of those men. Dispatched to the Alaskan frontier, young Sergeant Belk was better trained in bomb disposal than in keeping secrets. And the mysteries surrounding his mission only increased when he met his superior officer—a brutal veteran OSS spy hunter who knew all too well what the balloons could do—and Lily, a Yup’ik Eskimo woman who claimed she could see the future."


By the way, the backbone of the book - the story of the japanese ballon bombs is true, and that is also quite amazing.

I think I have some quotes earmarked in the book, but as my ereader is at home, and I am in the mood to write this short review - I will, maybe, post the quotes later.

[Gil · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Jorge Amado and Gabriel Garcia Marquez are South American Magical Realists, then Liam Callanan is a North American Magical Realist - and by North American, I mean TRULY North American, as in Alaska.

The story of a soldier turned priest's experiences during World War II, this first novel is simultaeneously a love story, the story of little known Japanese offensive, and an exploration of the meanings of friendship, love, and ultimately, faith.

Callanan's lyrical writing delivers an intimate understanding of the novel's protaganist, and the strange, often darkly magical world that surrounds him. That world is Alaska during WWII - apparently, a very different place than today's Alaska. But far from being some kind Alaskan adventure tale, this novel simply uses the wet, gray landscape of southern Alaska as a backdrop for its examination of the series of events that are the formative, if not definitive, events of the rest of the main character's life.

Well worht the read.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

IWTBITIW - (see paragraph three)

This is an interesting and haunting book, one that is likely to stay with you over the years. I found the structure odd at first, but persevered, and by the end had it comfortably worked out. The historical points and the geographic locale make it an interesting read.

I doubt that I would have picked up this book. I like so many others thought is was the other "Cloud" book. However I am glad I did.

Maybe we should have an acronym for the onset of a review - such as IWTBITIW (It Wasn't The Book I Thought It Was) and skip the tales of woe about the book not being the "right" book. My excuse was , I ordered it verbally from my library and the librarian selected the wrong one.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW this is one heck of a book. My mother really enjoyed it too.

I tried to not read it! I thought "I'll read it later, or some other time. But I kept picking it up and reading more. What a fascinating story. I'm only about 1/2 way through. My mom has a Nook and I downloaded this book into my phone. I also have a the actual book so I'm reading in two ways. I"m certain this will be a 5 star book for me.

WWII in Alaska. Native Americans. Racism. Shamans. Religion. Balloon weapons from Japan. REALLY well written. Not quite so great towards the end but,

Yes I'll stay with 5 stars.

[Matej · Rating 4 out of 5]

Came for the other Cloud Atlas, enjoyed this one as well.

[Giselle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not really sure how I feel about this book yet. I picked it up thinking it was a completely different book than it was (hi, Cloud Atlas— the power of the “the”) which definitely affected my reading experience for the first half of the book. The confusion aside (pun intended), the first half was extremely slow. So slow that I was admittedly unsure what the book was going to be about. It's like reading a fever dream. There’s no true plot. Or there is. Maybe not. I don’t know. All I know is that the last third of the book was surprisingly more interesting, more beautiful, more gut-wrenching, more thought-provoking than I would have predicted and reading the end left me feeling some type of heartbroken on my T ride home.

I’m a sucker for historical fiction (especially unspoken WWII stories), so this ticked that box. I’m also a sucker for lyrical writing that describes emotions and thoughts in a way that I’ve never thought of before (i.e. “He did not so much speak as take the words and place them, one by one, behind my eyes, beneath my scalp. I can still feel them there now.” p. 348 — I mean… hello?! simply beautiful), so this ticked that box, too. I’m an even bigger sucker for unrequited love stories, so, again, box ticked. Though despite all the ticked boxes, there was still something missing that prevented it from being a Really Good Book™️. I can’t put my finger on it, and I don’t know that I ever will but, alas, such is reading complex stories. 3/5 for posterity. Subject to change.

"I have spent a life fighting my way back to that moment. I have spent a life trying to get back to that precipice and leap off it... Lily had been subsumed by the spiritual world; I wanted to be swallowed whole, too, and join her, so I consecrated myself to a spiritual life. I'd go off in search of God and His knowledge- and if I found Lily there in the ether, somewhere along the way, so much the better."

[Facundo J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sí, yo también he sido uno de esos despistados que empezó a leer este libro pensando que se trataba de "Cloud Atlas" de David Mitchell. No era lo que esperaba pero me sorprendió para (muy) bien! Está escrito de manera preciosa y la historia es, sí, una más sobre la WWII pero original y entretenida. Nice one!

[Gail Baugniet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Take a little-known fact of war, weave in a bit of romance and the back story of a military man trained in bomb disposal. Then set the novel in the breathtaking location of Alaska. Add to that an author mastered in the poetic phrase.

All of that should have culminated in a spellbinding story. But I was in the wrong frame of mind to appreciate the tale or the wide spectrum of characters introduced throughout.

Maybe I will give it a second shot next year.

[Dara B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a novel about beautiful and deadly bomb-carrying balloons that Japan launched towards the west coast of US and Canada in the last year of WWII.

And the story progresses like a balloon - slowly, prettily, eerily. Almost like a dream.

There are main and secondary heroes here, sure. But the main hero of the story? Alaska. Its land, its people, its strange sense of being the end of the world, every other place being "Outside."

The war, too. The mess and the madness and exhilaration of it, especially when you are young and in love.

PS. Yes, I also started reading this having mistaken it for the other Cloud Atlas. Glad I did.

[Linda Prieskorn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was not at all what I expected. I was a very strange mix of Indian mythology, history of the Japanese ballon attacks on the the United Sates during WWII all told as a reflection by a Priest as his Shaman friend is dying in hospice. I enjoyed the historical parts of the book and the mythological parts but it took it wasn't a strong mix. With the exception of the Lieutenant who was crazy, the characters were interesting.

I really wanted more on the history of the balloon flights into the United Stated.

The book is intriguing, but it also so out of print.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

At least an A- for this novel. Story of an old priest and his Eskimo shaman friend/nemesis. And of the old priest as a teenage soldier during WWII in Alaska tracking down Japanese balloon bombs that floated from Japan across the Pacific to explode in over a dozen western states. And his attempt at surviving his crazed capitan. This is very much a spiritual quest between native religion and the white man's Christianity. And then there is Lily's story....

[Anita · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about Alaska, WWII, Japan bombing us with balloon bombs, an old priest, with pieces and bits of his shaman friend thrown in here and there. The topics were interesting, but I'm not sure why I kept reading it the first half of the book--oh yeah, the topics were interesting, and then the second half picked up. Disappointingly, the ending didn't provide the tie together I was looking for....I would recommend the book.

[Gita · Rating 5 out of 5]

While it had a slow start, the book gains depth and insight as it goes along. It provides some truly remarkable characters (Gurley for instance) and opens an unusual and fascinating window into the war games being played out in the US during WWII. It left me with a lot of food for thought. The ending (which was the beginning, actually) was unexpected. Lots of disparate ends did all come together in very well told story.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My wife got this for me thinking it was the other cloud atlas which I have been wanting for a while. I am glad she did. The book starts off slow, but is a very interesting story blending history and mysticism. The last 100 pages are what really sets the book apart. Sometimes the love triangle of the story became annoying, and there were parts of the beginning that seemed to drag on forever. Still, this is a good read that will grab your interest at times and not let go.

[Bobby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great! Great! Great! Great! Great! Can't really add anything more to the eulogies already penned with regard to this modern masterpiece. Personally speaking, as someone who is happy to read a variety of genres this book really has it all. How Mitchell conceived the variety of styles he describes these stories through is thrilling. I have never read a book twice, but having read this... Never say never.

[Chuck · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a very strange book in my opinion. It reads like a one way conversation between the author and reader and, of course, the reader has no voice. It is written in the first person and the person is a WWII vet who is now a priest and he tells rather abstract stories about his life and that of his sometimes friend who is a Native American Shaman. It reminded me of my lifelong mantra, "Life is too short to read bad books." I put it down after 50 pages.

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since both books have identical titles, I mistakenly read Liam Callanan's book rather than David Mitchell's. I thoroughly enjoyed Callanan's beautiful novel and when I finally sat down to read David Mitchell's...let's just say I was spoiled by the better book, a memerising story spun by Callanan.

[Barb Bailey · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story is set in Alaska during WWII. It is about the relationships between
a serviceman, a priest and a prostitute . It does shed light on an unknown topic to me, hot air balloon bombs. But all in all, I found this book dull, slow and not to my liking .

[Kathy Piselli · Rating 4 out of 5]

I may have been the only person to have found this book NOT while looking for Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. I like to read about Alaska and this was a fascinating period of time. Someone likened the story to a drifting balloon, and so it is. Combined with a great spy story.