The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake
Buy The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Fantasy
Reviewer: Simon Fenn
Summary: Magical, compelling, and lethally sharp The Atlas Six will grip you from the beginning and will remain with you after you are through.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 384	Date: March 2022
Publisher: TOR
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 978-1529095234
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Knowledge is carnage. You can't have it without sacrifice.

Dark, sharp, and highly inquisitive, The Atlas Six makes its publishing debut after becoming a Tik-Tok sensation.

Welcome to the Alexandrian Society, a place full of magic, secrets, betrayal and seduction. Six magicians – known as Medeians, are selected to be considered for initiation, each with different exceptional powers. They get recruited by The Society's Caretaker to be part of their secret organisation devoted to protecting lost magical knowledge. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will also secure a life of wealth, power and prestige. Though, only five will survive the initiation period and get out alive. The novel takes place in modern days, which I thought to be an excellent choice from the author as this fictional world feels magical yet tangible and easy to lose yourself.

The story requires a good amount of focus from the reader since academic subjects such as physic and science play into how the magic system works. Olivie Blake is a master of her craft. The amount of research she had to do for it is apparent. The conversations about magic, time and space felt authentic to the story that I often questioned their existence.

The writing style was a bit too pretentious at first to what I usually read, and I often had to re-read the same sentence two oir three times to make sense of it. Though it felt appropriate to this kind of story, I would've not liked it any other way.

The Atlas Six is a book about knowledge, power, and the lengths people will go to get both. It is no surprise that this book's core is its characters. I thought this assembled cast of morally grey personalities made the book engrossing. In each chapter, we meet different POVs and understand their complex minds. By the end of the book, I cared about most of them and could understand why they behaved the way they did. Though, some weren't as redeemable as others. After all, the whole point of the novel was to see how far these morally ambiguous humans would be willing to go to get power.

One of the main complaints I had with this novel was the ending. There is much building up throughout the book to what should have been the big twist. Yet, I wasn't fully satisfied with the way the author handled it as it felt rushed, and it didn't matter anymore at that point. That being said, I am hopeful that'll be expanded upon in the sequel, The Atlas Paradox, most likely coming out in late 2022.

The Atlas Six is a love letter to the dark academia genre, with morally grey characters and unlikely alliances. Olivie Blake wove an enthralling story about knowledge, desire and morality that blends different genres effortlessly and appeals to various readers. It is safe to say that the hype for this title is valid, and I'll be impatiently waiting for its sequel, The Atlas Paradox.

We'd like to thank the publishers for letting Bookbag have a review copy.

If you're looking for more fantasy, we've recently enjoyed Age of Ash by Daniel Abraham.

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