Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

 

Pages: 470

Publisher: Tor Books 

Release: 1st March 2022

The Alexandrian Society is a secret society of magical academicians, the best in the world. Their members are caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity. And those who earn a place among their number will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams. Each decade, the world’s six most uniquely talented magicians are selected for initiation – and here are the chosen few...

- Libby Rhodes and Nicolás Ferrer de Varona: inseparable enemies, cosmologists who can control matter with their minds.

- Reina Mori: a naturalist who can speak the language of life itself.

- Parisa Kamali: a mind reader whose powers of seduction are unmatched.

- Tristan Caine: the son of a crime kingpin who can see the secrets of the universe.

- Callum Nova: an insanely rich pretty boy who could bring about the end of the world. He need only ask.

When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they must spend one year together to qualify for initiation. During this time, they will be permitted access to the Society’s archives and judged on their contributions to arcane areas of knowledge. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. If they can prove themselves to be the best, they will survive. Most of them.

What I Have to Say 

This book fascinated me. I really enjoyed reading it.

 First of all a little warning, this is not an easy read. The writing is dense and there is a lot of very science-like talk about magic. The magic system is elaborate and the writer has gone deep into the way it works. Don't pick this up if you mind a slow read. I could only manage it in small sections, because it tired me more than some books do. I happened to like the slowness and the sciencey stuff so it worked for me but different people have different tastes. 

Secondly the characters are all immensely dislikeable.  This was something I loved about the book. It was so interesting how the writer could write such horrible characters and still get you to like them and feel empathy for them. One of my favourites was Parisa who was one of the worst. She was callous and manipulative and I ate up every moment of it. 

The ending was the only thing that let me down a bit. And it was a big let down. The big reveal was told rather than shown and it felt really distant from the action. I was really disappointed because it would have been a really good reveal if it had been done better.  

That said, it really set up some interesting stuff for the next book so I'm excited to see what comes next. 

(3.5 stars) 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Tor books for providing me with this copy for review.