I’m Nico,” said the wild-eyed, messy-haired boy whose T-shirt was inadvertently folded up on one side from the presence of his duffel bag. “You’re Gideon? You look exhausted,” he decided as an afterthought, tossing the bag below the second bed and glancing around the room, adding, “You know, we’d have a lot more room if we bunked these.” It feels important to note that without the propulsive murder competition scheme that drove much of The Atlas Six (and the first year of the new initiates’ time at the Society), this sequel initially struggles to find its purpose. While the search for Libby is ostensibly the animating principle of this part of the story, almost two-thirds of the novel is given over to what might politely be called navel-gazing, as the five remaining members wrestle much more personal concerns, from their shifting feelings toward one another and their plans for the future to big picture existential questions about power and morality. Olivie Blake is the pseudonym of Alexene Farol Follmuth, a lover and writer of stories, many of which involve the fantastic, the paranormal, or the supernatural, but not always. More often, her works revolve around what it means to be human (or not), and the endlessly interesting complexities of life and love.

Compelling, entertaining, and addictive. The Atlas Six is academic Darwinism: survival of the smartest with a healthy dose of magic." —T. L. Huchu, author of The Library of The DeadGideon wasn’t technically any more powerful than anyone else would be inside of a dream. His corporeal limitations were similar to those of telepathy—no magic performed in the dream realms could possibly harm him permanently, unless his physical form suffered something like a stroke or seizure. Gideon felt pain the same way another person might feel it in a dream—imagined, and then gone when they woke up. Unless he was under unusual amounts of stress that could then cause one of the above bodily reactions, that is … but that he never worried over. Only Nico worried about that sort of thing. Tor UK acquires TikTok fantasy phenomenon The Atlas Six". www.panmacmillan.com . Retrieved 2022-11-23.

Magically speaking, the dream realms were part of a collective subconscious. While every human had access to a corner of the realms, very few were able to traverse the realms of dreams as Gideon was. om (2022-10-24). "Author Olivie Blake tells us about The Atlas Paradox and The Atlas Six TV show". Winter is Coming . Retrieved 2022-11-23.How do you follow up a viral phenomenon? That is, at least in part, the question we must ask of The Atlas Paradox, Olivie Blake’s highly anticipated sequel to the popular dark academia novel The Atlas Six, a self-published fantasy debut that went so viral it won a publishing deal and dominated social media publishing discussion for months. Perhaps there was no way that anything that came after those kinds of highs could ever hope equal them, particularly not the middle novel in a trilogy, which can’t give us the answers we’re so desperately seeking.