The Bone Clocks moves along quicker than
The Cloud Atlas, by the same author, and seems to flow better, in my opinion. It begins in 1980 with Holly Sykes, a 15-year-old London girl, who has an ugly row with her mother, then the earth shattering betrayal by her older, illegal, boyfriend and her best friend. Then she runs away.
But she can’t run away from the radio people. The paranormal entities that she’s been hearing and been in contact with much of her life. And she isn’t just hearing things. They’re real. The genius of this writer is that he’s writing perfectly fine real life coming of age story, war story, writer’s life story and then in walks the paranormal, and it’s not the one you think it’ll be from all your mystery or horror reading. Eventually you learn who the sides are. Both are immortal, One “eats” the gifted souls to live eternally, carnivores, or Anchorites. The other dies natural deaths and continues on, only if not killed unnaturally, the Horologists, following a script (as in a play.)
Slowly, we go through personal stories of each individual, with sudden steps into the paranormal. Each interweaves with the other, a 14-year-old girl, a war correspondent, a young con man, a literary writer, and more. Getting closer to an event of proportions we cannot guess. But it will change lives.
Review by William Skidelsky in the Gaurdian
Review by Derek Thompson in the Atlantic
