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The Bone Clocks

Winner of the World Fantasy Award and Longlisted for the Booker and Folio Prizes

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The Bone Clocks

By: David Mitchell
Narrated by: Andrew Wincott, Chris Harper, Jennifer Woodward, Luke Thompson, Nicky Diss, Sandra Duncan
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**Pre-order UTOPIA AVENUE, the spectacular new novel from David Mitchell.**

The dazzling 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 . . .

(P) 2020 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd©2014 David Mitchell Fantasy Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Metaphysical & Visionary Science Fiction Heartfelt
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Critic reviews

600 pages of metafictional shenanigans in relentlessly brilliant prose . . . Death is at the heart of this novel. And there lies its depth and darkness, bravely concealed with all the wit and sleight of hand and ventriloquistic verbiage and tale-telling bravura of which Mitchell is a master . . . It's a whopper of a story (Ursula K. Le Guin)
Fantastical, ambitious, bold and exuberant (Viv Groskop, Books of the Year)
A mind-spinning, genre-splicing time-travelling epic
An extraordinary piece of storytelling (Books of the Year)
A return to the exuberance and genre-hopping of Cloud Atlas, and a proper page-turner (Stephanie Merritt, Books of the Year)
Combines fantastic inventiveness with depth and heart (Books of the Year)
One of the most entertaining and thrilling novels I've read in a long time . . . an extraordinary fun house of a novel (Meg Wolitzer)
A ludicrously ambitious, unstoppably clever epic told through a chorus of diverse narrators that is both outrageous in scope and meticulous in execution
Great story, great words, all good
Great fun . . . a tour de force
Mitchell is one of the most electric writers alive. To open a Mitchell book is to set forth on an adventure . . . In his latest novel, The Bone Clocks, Mitchell has spun his most far-flung tale yet . . . Strange and magical
Mind-bendingly ambitious . . . The force of [Mitchell's] storytelling makes The Bone Clocks a joy
Mitchell is a superb storyteller . . . One of the reasons he is such a popular and critically lauded writer is that he combines both the giddy, freewheeling ceaselessness of the pure storyteller with the grounded realism of the humanist. There's something for everyone, traditionalist or postmodernist, realist or fantasist
Magical . . . [it] perfectly illustrates the idea that we're all the heroes of our own lives as well as single cogs in a much larger and more beautiful mechanism
Deeply meaningful . . . The Bone Clocks has everything you might expect to find in a David Mitchell novel: Great characters in settings far-flung over space and time, all tied together by ambitious ideas and gorgeous writing
A sweeping epic . . . that, like Cloud Atlas, spans the ages and tinkers with the hidden gears of human history
The overwhelming impression is of an author at the height of his powers precisely because of a deep and intuitive understanding and curiosity of what it is about to live a life as a human being.
Wild, funny, terrifying . . . a slipstream masterpiece all its own
Unmissable
David Mitchell was my favourite author at college - I raved about The Bone Clocks to everyone I met. . . Mitchell's writing is just as magical for me now as it was back then. (R. F. Kuang)
All stars
Most relevant
Great narration, a long convoluted story which kept me rivetted throughout. But more than just a story, also an eye opener about a potential future life for Western Europe and perhaps reflecting current life in Syria and many other places.

Brilliant

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Overall I thought this book was really good. unfortunately the last but one actor was in my view awful. I found the different characters voices samey and the ones which did sound different were embarrassing. Which made it at times hard to follow. I actually brought the book and read her part myself as I couldn't listen to her. That said the actor who reads part two was brilliant and would of loved him to have read the whole book. The story was interesting, funny, sad and unput down able.

Good but have a paper copy to hand.

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I usually struggle with the fantasy genre, I find it hard to get into and prefer gritty real life novels. This book managed to be gritty and realistic, whilst also magically fantastical at the same time.

We follow Holly through her teens to her seventies, told in 6 parts spanning different times in Holly's life, with 5 different narrators (Holly herself being both the first and the last). The first part of the book was so utterly relatable that my intrigue kept me hooked through the rest of the book. It was really exciting to see where it was going and how it would come together in the end.

I listened to it in part on audiobook and 5 of the 6 voice artists were wonderful. Sadly the 5th narrator (voicing the largest section of the book) didn't gel with me at all, and I took the advice of another listener's review and bought the paperback to get through that part. I'm glad that narrator didn't come earlier or else I might have given up entirely. The others were excellent though, and I thoroughly enjoyed their performances.

5* for this epic adventure that made my cynical heart believe in a little bit of magic

Epic adventure, fantasy that comes to life

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This is book you need to pay full attention to or you'll easily get lost, as the plot is complex and there are many characters. I gave up about a quarter of the way in the first time but I'm so glad I went back to it again because I really enjoyed it.

Worth the read

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This is almost 2 separate books in one story. A sci-fi distributed through time but told at a satisfyingly slow pace with interesting characters and new ideas. For long stretches you completely forget the sci-fi element as you become absorbed in ordinary human experience told through the eyes of vulnerable characters going through difficult times. It's a slow burn but worth the investment, building to en exciting climax.

A sci-fi and a multi-biographical piece in one.

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