16h runtime; Read by Steve West, Caitlin Kelly, James Patrick Cronin, Damian Lynch, David Monteith, Andy Ingalls, Siho Ellsmore and Munirih Grace.
English language
Published March 1, 2022 by Macmillan Audio.
ISBN:
978-1-250-86046-0
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
1301391900
3 stars
(4 reviews)
The Alexandrian Society, caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity, are the foremost secret society of magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiation.
Enter the latest round of six: Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona, unwilling halves of an unfathomable whole, who exert uncanny control over every element of physicality. Reina Mori, a naturalist, who can intuit the language of life itself. Parisa Kamali, a telepath who can traverse the depths of the subconscious, navigating worlds inside the human mind. Callum Nova, an empath easily mistaken for a manipulative illusionist, who can influence the intimate workings of a person’s inner self. Finally, there is Tristan Caine, who can see through illusions …
The Alexandrian Society, caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity, are the foremost secret society of magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiation.
Enter the latest round of six: Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona, unwilling halves of an unfathomable whole, who exert uncanny control over every element of physicality. Reina Mori, a naturalist, who can intuit the language of life itself. Parisa Kamali, a telepath who can traverse the depths of the subconscious, navigating worlds inside the human mind. Callum Nova, an empath easily mistaken for a manipulative illusionist, who can influence the intimate workings of a person’s inner self. Finally, there is Tristan Caine, who can see through illusions to a new structure of reality—an ability so rare that neither he nor his peers can fully grasp its implications.
When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they will have one year to qualify for initiation, during which time they will be permitted preliminary access to the Society’s archives and judged based on their contributions to various subjects of impossibility: time and space, luck and thought, life and death. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. The six potential initiates will fight to survive the next year of their lives, and if they can prove themselves to be the best among their rivals, most of them will.
Written like bad streaming TV: mandatory "plot twists" clumsily done, drawing things out artificially, a rushed final episode, and introducing a shadowy character in the last shot to laugh menacingly.
Frustrating, like most Dark Academia books. It’s got some interesting ideas and moments, but the writing doesn’t sustain them. The magic system and world-building are underdeveloped. Is it a rule in this genre that magic users have to be assholes?
What world building! What a magic system! What a premise, & setting, I can't wait to find out more!
...and after the book just sort of fizzles out & ends, I'm still waiting.
The characters are all disappointing, particularly the women. The (annoying) Madonna, the (annoying) Whore, & the one who is also there. The fellas aren't a lot better. I feel like The Atlas Six could have been The Atlas Two, which would have made for far more interesting & complex characters to have boring conversations with each other.
Why though, why have daily classes that are never involved in the story? What's in them? Do the characters sit frozen & silent until later that evening when a boring conversation between two ppl happens?
Still, there's a bit of fucking & definitely some Gay Yearning ™️ so I didn't hate it. Love a bit of YA magic academy, wouldn't …
What world building! What a magic system! What a premise, & setting, I can't wait to find out more!
...and after the book just sort of fizzles out & ends, I'm still waiting.
The characters are all disappointing, particularly the women. The (annoying) Madonna, the (annoying) Whore, & the one who is also there. The fellas aren't a lot better. I feel like The Atlas Six could have been The Atlas Two, which would have made for far more interesting & complex characters to have boring conversations with each other.
Why though, why have daily classes that are never involved in the story? What's in them? Do the characters sit frozen & silent until later that evening when a boring conversation between two ppl happens?
Still, there's a bit of fucking & definitely some Gay Yearning ™️ so I didn't hate it. Love a bit of YA magic academy, wouldn't read any more in the series though.
The book bills itself as "Six Candidates: Five will be initiated. One will be eliminated." and a major plot point in this book is that these magicians discover eliminated means 🔪eliminated. Coming off of reading other "dark academia" books like the Scholomance series (aka 75% of your graduating class will die, possibly some even at breakfast, but it's better than the alternatives), it felt like this was very drawn out for the reader who knew this one murder was coming the whole time. There's some interesting worldbuilding being gestured at in the background, but most of it unfortunately stays out of focus while the camera is on the relationships of these six.
Ultimately, this is a book about six characters befriending and betraying each other in a quest to gain access to secret magical knowledge. However, when the focus is on the relationships, the motivation for WHY these characters are even here is very scant. One wants knowledge (and this is the only one that makes sense.) Two are there because they're obnoxiously competitive and the other one went. The other three honestly just seem like they're bored with life, which didn't end up feeling very compelling for me.
