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All right, but it's gonna be tricky...
 
The third novel by David Mitchell ([[NamesName's the Same|no]], not ''[[That Mitchell and Webb Look|that]]'' David Mitchell), ''Cloud Atlas'' consists of six nested stories, each set in a different time and place, moving forwards in time from the 19th century all the way to an [[After the End]] future: the six protagonists (or at least, one protagonist from each era) are implied to be [[Reincarnation|reincarnations]] of the same person, linked by a comet-shaped birthmark (although the timing of the third and fourth stories would seem to imply that those two main characters must have been alive for at least some overlap).
* Adam Ewing. An American notary, returning by ship from the Chatham Islands, New Zealand. He keeps a journal of his journey through the Pacific Ocean. The story is set c. 1850.
* Robert Frobisher. An English musician, penniless and unable to find work in his chosen field. Frobisher is hired as an assistant to a composer, settling with his employer in Zedelgem, Belgian. He records his experiences in a series of letters, which he sends to his friend Rufus Sixsmith. The story is set c. 1931.
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* [[Powered By a Forsaken Child]]: {{spoiler|Fabricants that serve out their time as workers are killed and recycled into soap to feed more fabricants. Sonmi has the good fortune to ''watch this happen''.}}
* [[Secret Police]]: {{spoiler|Somni drops a figurative bomb on her archivist when she reveals that she suspected she was in their grasp almost from the beginning but played along at the end at least because the book they wanted her write would be more influential and important than they realized. Considering how she is regarded in Zachry's era, she was probably right.}}
* [[Self -Deprecation]]: Cavendish finds a manuscript of Luisa Rey's adventure and dismisses the [[Reincarnation]] angle as far too New Age-y, despite [[Lampshade Hanging|having a similar birthmark himself]].
** He also describes the birthmark in less romantic imagery than the comet everyone else seems to see it as.
* [[Social Darwinist]]
* [[The Mourning After]]: It's implied Sixsmith lived forty-five more years, but never loved again after Frobisher. Ouch.
* [[Timey -Wimey Ball]]: The narrative structure of the novel weaves together themes, ideas, and people forward and backward in time.
* [[Title Drop]]: In the last chapter, the narrating character talks about wishing he had some kind of map to track souls as they move across the ages, like clouds across the sky. He calls it a [[Cloud Atlas]].
** Also, the title of Frobisher's masterpiece is The Cloud Atlas Sextet. Its structure is described as something similar to that of the novel, with six individual parts slowly woven together into one greater whole. Frobisher himself isn't sure if it's clever or gimmicky.
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