A Review of Olivie Blake’s The Atlas Paradox (Tor, 2022)

[lsobiesk]

 

Written by Stephen Hong Sohn

Edited by Lizzy Sobiesk

Olivie Blake’s The Atlas Paradox (Tor, 2022) was published in the same year as the first installment. I have to think that Blake must have had at least most of this novel drafted already since getting her contract, with this one coming out so quickly and being so lengthy! In any case, this one begins basically where the last began, and I do need to provide spoilers at this point only because, well, it’s hard to say what’s going on in this one without telling you what happened in the last one. So, spoiler warning here . . . the actual marketing description is super pithy: “Six magicians were presented with the opportunity of a lifetime. Five are now members of the Society. Two paths lie before them. All must pick a side. Alliances will be tested, hearts will be broken, and The Society of Alexandrians will be revealed for what it is: a secret society with raw, world-changing power, headed by a man whose plans to change life as we know it are already under way.”

 

When looking back on this one, I’m not really sure what sides we’re talking about, except for the fact that we now know what Atlas Blake is sort of up to. He wants to be able to warp time and space to open up a kind of multiverse. This process requires the talents of the current six, one of whom is trapped now in the past (Libby Rhodes). I guess there is the side that wants Atlas to succeed, and the side that wants Atlas to fail, which is currently being led by Ezra Fowler, who, as we discover, is not just Libby’s ex-boyfriend but also a very powerful medeian and part of Atlas’s class of initiates way back when both were just starting out. The middle in a trilogy is typically the saggiest, and this installment suffers from some of the lag. Here, Blake has to get Libby Rhodes back out from the past but also has to ensure that there is some sort of relevant plotting there so that this type of deviation is robust enough to provide us with some serious content. Rhodes is stuck with the limitations of ‘90s technology, while also realizing that her path forward will require her to make a very destructive decision. Back in the present, the five initiates are left wonder where Libby is, while they all make their own way through the archives. Indeed, they are supposed to be fulfilling some sort of research assignment related to their second years as initiates. On the side, Tristan and Nico devise ways to contact Libby even across time, which requires the help of Gideon, Nico’s friend and possible romantic partner. Gideon, part-mermaid apparently (um yeah, hard to explain this particular motif in this fictional world), can traverse dreamworlds and can cross time and space through this arena and can help to communicate with Libby.  Ultimately though, Libby does come back, and her choice essentially requires her to set off a nuclear reaction in order to do so. The price is high: the area where the explosion occurs will of course be irradiated for decades, even if no one actually or directly dies near the site. The conclusion of this book sees one possible death and two definite deaths. Libby’s romantic partner, Belen, in the past, is discovered to be part of the Forum, a group that works directly against The Society, in the future. Belen has some sort of medical event that leaves her indisposed, while it looks likely that Libby kills Ezra (well, for basically kidnapping her and lying about their relationship, etc.) and then kills Atlas (for being megalomaniacal and hiding his true intent as caretaker). This ending sets up new dynamics for the third, as a new set of animosities occurs once Ezra and Atlas are ultimately killed off.

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A Review of Olivie Blake’s The Atlas Complex (Tor, 2024)

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Written by Stephen Hong Sohn

Edited by Lizzy Sobiesk

So, I leave us with a review of the final installment: Olivie Blake’s The Atlas Complex (Tor, 2024). Again, I must briefly make my spoiler warning before providing us with the marketing description: “An explosive return to the library leaves the six Alexandrians vulnerable to the lethal terms of their recruitment. Old alliances quickly fracture as the initiates take opposing strategies as to how to deal with the deadly bargain they have so far failed to uphold. Those who remain with the archives wrestle with the ethics of their astronomical abilities, while elsewhere, an unlikely pair from the Society cohort partner to influence politics on a global stage. And still the outside world mobilizes to destroy them, while the Caretaker himself, Atlas Blakely, may yet succeed with a plan foreseen to have world-ending stakes. It’s a race to survive as the six Society recruits are faced with the question of what they're willing to betray for limitless power—and who will be destroyed along the way.”

 

The description is somewhat off, since Atlas Blakely is dead, killed by the hand of Libby Rhodes, who has unleashed her full medeian potential. Meanwhile, the “lethal terms of their recruitment” mean that one in every cohort needs to die. Atlas’s cohort didn’t follow this rule, believing they could skirt around it. What happened when they tried to avoid having to sacrifice a member of their cohort was that every single member of that cohort eventually died instead of one. Thus, the six that Atlas himself recruited in book 1 realize that they have to figure out the appropriate sacrifice from their grouping in order to avoid the same outcome. The problem is: who should be killed? This question is more complicated than one thinks, because apparently, there is a right answer. One of the six is supposed to be most deserving of being killed off, and only the archives, which are the sentient knowledge source from which all the magical texts come from, can be the arbiter of whether or not the sacrifice is appropriate. Blake has a ton to deal with in this text. She added another wrinkle into the equation by introducing the Forum, an organization hell-bent on ending the Society and disseminating all the information in the archives itself. In my humble opinion, there was a little bit too much to wrap up here, and I definitely wanted more information about the rules of this world. For instance, we discover that Dalton Emery, a medeian with the power to animate and create life, doesn’t fully realize that his power might have to draw this life force from somewhere else. This element is the huge question that I still have about this particular installment. In fact, I still do not understand why the archives require a sacrifice at all and wonder if it is connected to the cost that exists to use magic in this world. In any case, the final piece of this trilogy is certainly exciting and for this reason alone, I do think many dark fantasy readers will want to give it a shot, but the ending is truly going to be polarizing. The choice of who dies is not going to sit well with all readers. While I felt Libby’s character development made sense (despite the devastating direction she went), it was one of her foils, Parisa Kamali, that I had the hardest trouble wrapping my head around. Finally, I did find the character dynamics to be quite frustrating, only because so many of the characters seemed to detest each other for most of the three books, and this level of tension could be exhausting, at least to me. Despite my critiques, I am going to be incredibly clear: Blake is obviously super talented and can really drive a story forward with energetic momentum. The books themselves are gorgeous publications, with some fully sketched out images of characters, which only add to the quality of the overall work. And I know I’m going to find someone who has read the work, if only to ask the questions I’ve brought up here. I’ll definitely read as much of Blake’s other publications that I can, and there are many!

 

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