Clocks In

Ten years ago, visionary author David Mitchell bent time, space, and the minds of millions with his vertiginously ambitious novel Cloud Atlas. Now, 10 years and two subsequent novels later, the author returns to the genre-warping, time-tripping, metaphysical thriller form with a vengeance and a cast of thousands. The Bone Clocks (Random House) is intricately constructed out of interlocking stories connected by the psychically ensnared Holly Sykes. We first meet Holly as a punk runaway in 1984, and then again in subsequent decades over the course of 60 years, traveling between such locales as the medieval Swiss Alps, Shanghai, the 19th-century Australian bush, Baghdad in 2004, and a future New York City. As the world evolves, so does Holly, becoming a grandmother scarred by her role in a blood feud between two otherworldly gangs of semi-immortals at war in the shadows for nothing less than the souls of humanity. Mitchell's mesmerizing saga is evidence of the power of story to to stop time entirely.

E.S.

FOR DETAILS, GO TO VF.COM/CREDITS