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.
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.
