I must firstly state that Cloud Atlas is one of my all time favourite books so there was going to be the risk of comparison from the beginning. But having read and been impressed by Doerr's "All the Light We Cannot See" I knew to trust a master storyteller and try to put comparisons to one side.
For maybe until half way through the book the storylines and characters weren't compelling and the comparison was deadly. How to compete with David Mitchell's satire, mystery and gothic horror/Science-fiction, but I should have trusted Anthony Doerr.
IT IS WORTH IT!
Characters deepen, storylines connect up and it is not at all predictable. By the end he took me somewhere else from the experience of Cloud Atlas, more optimistic even with the horrible realities, and fully winning it's place on my shelves not far from David Mitchell's works.