number9dream: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize

Even more dazzling than GHOSTWRITTEN - Matt Thorne, Independent on SundayIf anything more amazing than his debut, GHOSTWRITTEN, this Booker-shortlisted fantasia confirms the Hiroshima-based Mitchell as the most prodigally gifted of young British novelists ... an extraordinary literary cabaret of dreams, visions and pastiches, from video-game rides and gangster rumbles to suicide submariners. Endlessly ingenious and hugely enjoyable - but oddly moving as well. A rich showcase for 21st-century fiction. - Boyd Tonkin, IndependentI haven't enjoyed a novel so much in ages; wild, bristling with strangeness - Independent Books of the YearA clever, contemporary reworking of classic videogame / quest themes ... This videogame is made not of zeros and ones, however, but of dream fragments and poetry ... the beautiful, snake-like narrative twists and tangles around leitmotifs borrowed from action films, manga, anime, SF, fantasy, old detective novels, mob stories, coming-of-age romances, cyberpunk, epic quests and war stories ... Mitchell rolls around in implausibility, takes some incredible literary liberties, and - yes - gets away with it. - Scarlett Thomas, IndependentExceptional . . . more than a surreal detective story or coming-of-age novel, more than a portrait of Tokyo or stream of adolescent consciousness, it is unique: clever, unusual, gripping and beautifully written - Literary ReviewIt's a measure of the precocity of David Mitchell's talent that this novel, the author's second book, is nearly a rare example of a satisfying "anti-novel". This experimentation with narrative form is usually reserved for authors with comfortably established book sales and secure reputations. It is told dexterously ... The book progresses through quick changes of style and texture. This fixes one's attention on the delights of Mitchell's prose. Almost without realising it, you find that you have fallen for Eiji, and that his plight has registered at a deep level. - Paul Tebbs, Daily TelegraphResounds to the same marvellous chatter of voices that marked out GHOSTWRITTEN, his outstanding first novel - ObserverDavid Mitchell's second novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and it's not hard to see why. The narrative has a langorous, dream-like quality - the result of being structured around Eiji's fantasies. Mitchell writes well in a range of different moods and styles: funny, poignant, humdrum, violent. Most strikingly of all, he depicts Tokyo as a bewildering labyrinth, which provides the perfect backdrop to the desultory wanderings of Eiji's mind. - Observer