Talking To: Olivie Blake
Olivie Blake caught up with The Everyday Magazine to talk about the Tiktok sensation, The Atlas Six. She gave us the lowdown on how writing the book was and her future releases. If you want to find out more about how this great novel came into existence, read on!
Can you give our readers a synopsis of The Atlas Six?
The Atlas Six is about the six uniquely talented magicians vying for initiation into the Alexandrian Society, a secret society of caretakers who protect and contribute to the archives of “lost” knowledge from the Library of Alexandria and on throughout history. In the book’s contemporary setting, the question of how to combat climate change is answered with magic, so the characters exist in a world where magicians, called medeians, are university educated and contribute to a system of capitalism much like ours.
These particular six candidates each have a rare magical speciality and a myriad of personal motivations for pursuing The Society’s promise of wealth, power, and knowledge—which drives their tendency to want to kiss or kill any of the others at any given moment (two of them already hate each other and the rest of them are about to) and there is obviously a catch to this extraordinary opportunity, which is that only five of the six are guaranteed initiation.
Who is your favourite character?
In some ways, the book is both a six-person love story and a (terribly perverse) family drama. The story can't exist without every single one of them. I like to think of my characters as shades on a colour wheel, where each character has their equal and opposite. Every perspective is a new, exciting chance to shed some light on the ways our previous narrator is lying to themselves!
Who was the most difficult character to write?
With everyone essentially being their own unreliable narrator, they're all equally interesting and equally challenging. And I assume they all have pieces of me, but let's not examine that too closely.
What inspired the book?
In terms of thought exercises, I was wrestling with the question of whether it was ethical for me to have a child in a world where 1) I can't promise things are going to get any better and 2) it's impossible to be ethical. The series as a whole explores a lot of themes about who deserves to own knowledge, or whether we are morally obligated to make certain choices. From a craft perspective, though, I wanted to write a story that allowed me to play with what I found interesting at the time, which was a cast of people who were neither "good" nor "bad." What would it mean to see the world through the perspectives of six unimaginably powerful people whose greatest strengths were also their biggest blindspots? It was an exploration of irony in that way. Plus, libraries are sexy.
In the book, we see characters like Tristan and Libby attempting to explore various romantic relationships, what made you decide to include the exploration of love as a theme in the book?
Oh, I am always exploring love. I think there is nothing more fascinating than the various kinds of love that motivate our choices and our values. This is not an exploration of any particular romantic relationship so much as love that has the capacity to both enrapture and corrupt. The human element is always most interesting to me, which is why despite the darkness of the setting and the cerebral nature of the themes, this is fundamentally a book about six people. It always comes back to them.
Trust is such a big part of the book, and more importantly, losing trust. We see this a lot with characters losing trust in each other because of the risk of being picked for the ‘sacrifice.’ What made you choose to create such a dynamic?
This is what's interesting to me! Like I said, the human element. People are unpredictable and irrational and flawed, and there is a lot of beauty in that. A lot of danger, too.
What made you decide to write the book from multiple points of views? Did you find this hard to write?
I always, always write from multiple points of view. Possibly this is the cynic in me, but I simply can't trust a single narrator. What person on earth can you trust to tell you the truth when we're all mostly lying to ourselves to begin with? Whenever I read a single-POV romance I always expect to suddenly turn a page to the other POV that says "reader, that was all lies." Which would be incredibly rude. But, you have to admit, very interesting.
Who did you think had the best power out of all the characters?
Best is up for speculation. But I am most interested in telepathy for daily use.
If The Atlas Six became a movie, who would you cast?
The book has been optioned for TV and I am executive producing, so this doesn't feel like a safe question to answer! Honestly, if it were up to me I'd cast six no-name actors who share the characters' exact origins. I'd love to see Parisa or Nico on screen and just know instantly that it was them. But we'll see what the people with the money have to say about that.
Congratulations on the move from self-publishing to traditional publishing! How was the process and how did you find it?
I don't like to use traditional publication as the benchmark for self-publishing success, since fundamentally there are reasons one might pursue one or the other. I have always divided my work between projects I felt were right for self-pub (weird ones, basically) or projects I thought could reach a larger commercial market. But choosing to traditionally publish this book with Tor was the right move for me personally, because while I didn't initially think there was a market for an unconventional story with a quieter, more character-driven plot than what one typically finds in SFF, I have never been interested in managing my own production pipeline (and truthfully, I hate the promotion part the worst... "buy my book if you want to or don't, go with what you feel" is not a very good marketing strategy, and yet somehow here we are).
I have absolutely no idea how the book came to be championed by so many amazing and passionate social media users and booksellers. I have to think there was something in the zeitgeist? In any case, I am immensely, imposter syndrome-ily grateful, and also honoured beyond belief to have partnered with Tor in bringing the series to life. My editorial resources are unmatched, and what was once the book of my mind has become the book of many minds. The series is all the better for it.
How long has the book been in the works?
I wrote it in the winter of 2019 and self-published in January of 2020. It took off in the spring of 2021 as a direct result of the pandemic, I suspect. Bookish communities on social media grew in response to collective isolation, which is a beautiful thing. Why they chose my book is of course completely beyond my scope of understanding. In any case, the book was picked up by Tor a few months later, revised, and re-released in March of this year.
How was the world-building process and planning stage?
I'm not a proponent of extensive planning, as I find it to be (for me) a method of procrastination. I troubleshoot as I go, over the course of many rounds of revision. In the case of this book specifically, I had written a book with some of these characters that had a very derivative plot and straightforward "big bad" type of villain. I put it away for at least a year, I think, and when I revisited it, I decided it needed higher stakes, no heroes or villains. Once I had the idea for the elimination twist, I wrote the first draft of this book in about eight weeks, with the details of the world being fleshed out as I went.
In fairness, much of the world remains to be seen by the audience, because I wanted book one to feel especially claustrophobic. It’s easier to get lost in the characters' skewed morality that way - but the implications of the characters' choices will have a ripple effect that extends to more of the outside world.
What would you recommend for fans of The Atlas Six?
The Secret History is a definite influence. The philosophical digressions, the gradual psychological unravelling, that's all consciously in here. My favourite dark academia books are the weird ones: Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas and Bunny by Mona Awad. For those who like the science, I really enjoy what T.L. Huchu is doing in The Library of the Dead.
What can we expect in the sequel?
My husband says it's better than the first book. My publishers say hearts will break. I think it's funnier in the way everything is funnier when you're coming a bit unglued.
Will you write more books in the future?
Oh, definitely. Assuming nobody stops me, I've got a lot of stories and I'm willing to make that everyone's problem!
You can get a copy of The Atlas Six here.
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