The Atlas Six

Atlas, Book 1

By: Olivie Blake

Narrated by: Steve West, Siho Ellsmore, Munirih Grace, James Patrick Cronin, David Monteith, Damian Lynch, Caitlin Kelly, Andy Ingalls

Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake is the runaway TikTok must-listen fantasy novel of the year, read by a full cast of narrators. If you loved Ninth House and A Deadly Education, you’ll love this.

Secrets. Betrayal. Seduction.

Welcome to the Alexandrian Society.

When the world’s best magicians are offered an extraordinary opportunity, saying yes is easy. Each could join the secretive Alexandrian Society, whose custodians guard lost knowledge from ancient civilizations. Their members enjoy a lifetime of power and prestige. Yet each decade, only six practitioners are invited—to fill five places.

Contenders Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona are inseparable enemies, cosmologists who can control matter with their minds. Parisa Kamali is a telepath, who sees the mind’s deepest secrets. Reina Mori is a naturalist who can perceive and understand the flow of life itself. And Callum Nova is an empath, who can manipulate the desires of others. Finally there’s Tristan Caine, whose powers mystify even himself.

Following recruitment by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they travel to the Society’s London headquarters. Here, each must study and innovate within esoteric subject areas. And if they can prove themselves, over the course of a year, they’ll survive. Most of them.

The story continues in The Atlas Paradox, the heart-stopping sequel.

Originally a self-published sensation, this edition has been fully edited and revised. Now includes the short story Sacred Hospitality.

©2022 Macmillan Audio (P)2022 Macmillan Publishers International Limited

A nice dark academia vibe for mood readers

Great character development, intriguingly dark and just the right amount of spice. I enjoyed having different voices for each character. The magic system could have had even more time, the actions scenes took me a while to grasp and envision.

The ending is a bit of a let down. The short story at the end is boring, I wish I'd skipped it. Not sure if I'll pick up the next one in the series.

Good performance, but... The audio breakdown is horrible, the chapters END a few seconds into the following ones, so selecting the sleep timer was not an option.

Best fantasy book I ever read

Just wow! the use of words... the thought going into every phrase.... the writing in itself is just magical. and... the narrators are brilliant too. well done. I applaud you

What on Earth is going on

I found it boring, slow and with no real plot or value. Nice idea, done badly.
Kinda sad I spent my monthly credit on it.

I don’t get the hype

Booktok (on the app TikTok) was raving about this book. But to be honest to was just ok. It wasn’t that kind of book I could not put down. It took some effort to keep on going back to it. The story it’s self wasn’t bad but it was a little slow. I liked the fact that each character had a different voice narrating and that the book was written in each main characters perspective. Each character saw the others in different ways, showing how we as people see each other in different ways. The concept of the universe they lived in was well thought out and created many opportunities to be creative with each character’s ability and potential to grow. All in all some chapters were better then others but there is not a part of this book that stands out so much that I would recommend it to others.

So much wasted potential...

I really tried with this. The premise was excellent, most of the delivery was good (some speakers were better than others), but overall the story just dragged and dragged and dragged.... on and on with very little actually happening. I actually went online to see how the story finished (I gave up about two thirds of the way through) and the first search I found was effectively 'great idea for a story but really boring, can anyone tell me how it finishes?' - my thoughts exactly! Don't waste your time, credit or money on this, it really isn't a great listen at all

Painfully artless, begs actual editing

This should be titled "Her Next Mister" or something equally trite. It is overlong, repetitive, and reads like a fourteen-year old quoting filler episodes of a high school drama. Simply put, it is poorly written and shoddily edited.

The premise is interesting: A group of six must sacrifice one of their number to gain admittance to a secret society. Sadly, the story consists almost exclusively of stilted dialogue: either childish "will they/won't they" exchanges or puerile sexual advances that make the characters sound like they've never had an actual adult conversation. I suppose this is less conspicuous to someone consuming this chapter by chapter, week by week. Hence, shame on the editor.

There is virtually no magic in this book. This would not be problem, except that it is part of the central conceit of the plot. Then again, in this book, virtually nothing happens. The entire story boils down to: There is a cast of laughably generic characters, who are occasionally in the same room, and the evil masterminds are tangentially related to them. The evil mastermind is bad, the other is not. That is all that happens.

I don't like it

I love fiction books describing various sorts of magic, dark academia, witches, alchemy, magical schools, etc. so I expected to love this one, but something is missing here (the magic?) The narration is terrible.