#bone clocks

Though I appear only in strife

My quantity will let you see

All this world was meant to be

.

.

.

“Stupid clock that may or not be made of bone.”

Séverin lifted his head. “What did you say?”

“I said the clock may or may not be made of bone.”

“Bone.”

Hypnos muttered, “I could use a quick one.”

Enrique ignored him. “Could that fit? As an answer?”

“‘I have been with you all your life,’” read Hypnos aloud. “True. Or that’d be deadly terrifying. Though some people, I honestly believe, are born without spines. And next we have, ‘though I appear only in strife.’ What? I don’t think that fits.”

. . .

 There, he saw the children with their too-sharp ribs ridging their shirts. Knobbed elbows stained with dirt. Eyes unsettlingly wide in faces sculpted by starvation.

“I think ‘bone’ fits,” he said quietly.

Hypnos cast him a strange look. Enrique had no desire to be the focus of that attention, so he said, “The last two lines fit as well. We know that the Fallen House had some macabre interests. It’s possible that meant using bone. In which case, that line, ‘all this world was meant to be,’ might fit with their own interests and not all humans’ everywhere. Which leaves the second-to-last line—‘my quantity will let you see’—as the final hint. Maybe it means the number of bones found in a human body. How many are there, anyway?”

“Two hundred and six,” said Séverin instantly.

Enrique frowned. “Do I want to know why you had that answer immediately?”

Séverin’s smile gleamed wolflike. “I doubt it.”

“But how do we get 206 to show up on a clock?”

David Mitchell is one of the world’s most successful literary novelists. He has been twice nominated for the prestigious Booker prize, and his novel Cloud Atlaswas adapted to the Tykwer and Wachowski film starring Tom Hanks. He’s also a huge sci-fi fan with a long love of geek culture. Damien Walter sat down with the bestselling author to discuss his SF influences, which D&D character type he…

books cristina read in 2019: slade house - david mitchell

Bone Clocks (2014). David Mitchell

The Bone Clocks(2014) David Mitchell What if you could live forever? Pretty common topic of SciFi and fantasy – even the Bible. Mitchell compares those who are naturally able to be “reborn” in new body when they die (Horologists) with those who must murder innocents to achieve extended life (Anchorites). We who die and don’t come back are the “Bone Clocks”. Holly Sykes is the central theme of the…