Cloud Atlas is a multi-layered novel that relates the interlocking stories of six different characters from several different time periods, both past and future. Each character discovers a past artifact related to another character, and even while they are caught up in dramas of their own-sickness, conspiracy, the struggle to create, a post-apocalyptic rebellion-they attempt to learn more about these figures from the past. The novel explores the ideas of reincarnation and the interconnectedness of all things.