Review of "The Atlas Six" by Olivie Blake

I received an ARC of this book from Tor in exchange for an honest review.

It took me until about halfway through The Atlas Six to re-calibrate my idea of what I was reading. Despite getting the opening chapter, and the most attention to their thoughts and goals, Libby and Nico are not the only protagonists. Despite suggesting occult knowledge, dangerous rituals, and a Triwizard-Tournament-like competition, the book's biggest secrets are deferred to a sequel. Rather than giving us a post-college Harry Potter with more ambition, sex, and violence, Blake uses the competition as backdrop to give us six messy, complicated people bouncing off of and into each other for an entire novel. Once I settled into this way of looking at it, The Atlas Six became much more entertaining to read. Six characters is a lot to juggle, and by necessity three or four of them must fade into the background in each scene, but a steady rotation of points of view ensures that no one is entirely left out. That said, Blake gives us more background on Libby, Nico, and Tristan initially, and in particular reveals their fears as well as their dreams. In contrast, Reina is under-developed through most of the novel, never really making herself salient after her introduction, while Callum and Parisa are initially presented as callous smooth operators whose only weakness is being too perfect. The latter two are explored in more detail as the novel progresses, and while I am still unsure what lies beneath Callum's detachment, Parisa has both a hidden past and the potential key to the future waiting in the wings for the sequel. In a classic example of narrative economy, none of the side characters are truly irrelevant; figuring out their importance to the plot is entertaining, but secondary to watching how those outside the competition further tangle the lives of those inside it. Dalton in particular may as well be a box labeled "Secrets and Drama;" his lack of agency is likely plot-relevant, and successfully frustrating to read in a world where everyone else is constantly proving just how far they'll go to achieve their goals. Thematically, the book falls slightly flat when trying to give this messy striving a moral or philosophical bent. While it makes sense to leave the limits of the six protagonists' powers unexplored, doing so means that there is always the possibility of a deus ex machina reveal, and the stakes of the contest seem unclear. This lack of consequences (despite several attempts to impose them, either through damaged relationships or actual physical threats) makes it difficult to treat questions of sacrifice seriously, and any debate about the responsibilities of the powerful or the ethical implications of reshaping the world through magic falls flat in the face of characters who cannot help but warp space, time, and minds through their mere existence. However, The Atlas Six is not primarily a serious exploration of the meaning and costs of power, nor is it a puzzle-box whodunnit that lives and dies by the complexity of its secrets. It is above all else a character drama, and the moral qualms and quandaries of its protagonists certainly deliver on that front. About three-quarters of the way through, it became clear how much of a cliffhanger this book would have to end on, which made the ending feel both a little rushed and a little unsatisfying. Still, if you don't mind drama without end, The Atlas Six is a great way to spend an afternoon; even if you do, it's worth keeping an eye on the sequel (coming later this year) for a chance to get more of Blake's fascinating characters.

Three and a half out of five stars. An excellent character study that falls victim to sequelitis and defers many of its key questions about world-remaking power to future installments.