A TikTok sensation, The Atlas Six is a previously self-published novel that Tor Books will republish in March 2022–and it’s already on the way to a small screen near you. Deadline reports that Amazon beat “a number of bidders” for the rights to adapt Blake’s novel about powerful magicians who are invited to join a secret society. “Knowledge is carnage,” reads the book’s ominous tagline.
Described as “The Secret History meets The Umbrella Academy,” The Atlas Six‘s upcoming edition will be revised and edited, and will feature new artwork. Here’s the summary:
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The Atlas Six
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.
Most of them.
The novel was originally published via Kindle Direct Publishing, and went viral on BookTok earlier this year, earning over a million mentions. It’s the first in a trilogy; Tor Books will publish the first and second books in 2022.
Olivie Blake is the pen name of Alexene Follmuth, who has also written the webtoon Clara and the Devil and has a YA novel coming out in March. Falmouth will executive produce the Atlas Six series along with Tanya Seghatchian (The Crown) and John Woodward (Cold War). It’s still in development, so no release date has been set.
