Book Review - Olivie Blake's The Atlas Complex
The Atlas Complex by Olivie Blake
Published by: Tor Books
Publication Date: January 9th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 496 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy
If someone offered you all the power would you say yes? That doesn't make you a villain. It doesn't make you a hero. It makes you human. But power has to be taken from someone. And both Atlas and Ezra took that power with both hands and created a foundation of futility built on despair that was destined to rot. Atlas watched as his cohort suffered. As his cohort died. Somewhere, out there, he and Ezra chose a different path. But Altas needed the six to bring about this change. He needed them to destroy the world. He had to have Libby and Nico, Reina, Parisa and Tristan. He even needed Dalton. But not Callum. Callum was the sacrifice that should have been. They should have never trusted Atlas. Now that Libby is back they have an additional problem. Their agreement with the library is unfulfilled. Just like when Atlas and Ezra tried to trick the library, tried to deny it it's pound of flesh, the six now owe the library a death. The promise unfulfilled has led the library to be draining them. They aren't living up to their potential because they didn't read the terms of service carefully enough. If only they had realized that they were making a deal with three separate entities, the Society, the archives, and Atlas. Therefore they have some choices before them, keep working for the library, or beat Atlas at his own game, win the multiverse arms race, and perhaps acknowledge that they have a god complex. That last one is specifically for Reina. The plan wasn't to destroy the world, but to make a new one. The idea isn't necessarily a good one, but it is one nonetheless. Gideon is the one to confront Nico that Nico's world is falling apart. Altas is missing, Dalton is lying, and their obsession is compromising them. They don't realize that they are trapped in their very own multiverse trolley problem. They can't see the forest for the trees. They want to prove that they can do it so they will, damn the consequences. And that's why Atlas chose them. Their lack of morals. Nico though always thought that in the darkest of times he could rely on Libby's moral compass. But she has been corrupted. He doesn't know what happened when she return from the past. What went down in Atlas's office. Something happened there that changed everything. Perhaps she is now like the archives, soulless. But how many times can you burn the world down and still walk away unscathed? And what if their goal isn't to succeed but just survive? Their burden is the burden of survival.
I was being generous when I said this series should have been a duology. There wasn't enough material for two books let alone three. This should have been one book. Nothing more. Possibly less. The Atlas Complex was one of the most excruciating reads of my life because it adds nothing, it does nothing, it is nothing. Hundreds of pages of nothing can break you. And what's worse, I think it's trying to be clever. It's trying to hide the reveal that Atlas and Ezra were murdered by Libby when she returned to the present and therefore the six just keep up this pretense that everything is normal when nothing is. That means it's just more of the same. More of them doing nothing. More of them accomplishing nothing. Because you know that big, destroy the world experiment that Atlas had hand-selected them for? Well, they decide to do it and then they just stop. At the cost of Nico. So THE THING this whole series was building to, well, it doesn't happen so we never find out what would have happened. But that's not the only loose end. For a story that could have been one and done we have a trilogy of the unanswered and the unexplained. We aren't even privy to who lives and who dies. We've been following these six characters for so long and we aren't given the common courtesy of some kind of ending. I mean, could I at least have found out about the archives and it's sentience? Nope. That wasn't in the cards. Olivie Blake obviously wanted this to be about the six characters and their excruciating relationships which meant what minimal plot there was didn't matter in the end. Either you loved these deplorables or you deplored the book. I deplored the book. And speaking of deplorables... Trump. So, at the end of The Atlas Complex Olivie Blake explains that this entire series was written as a way for her to process the trauma of Trump's presidency. I'm not sure if her process involved passing that trauma onto me, but she sure did. The "themes" in this book are how people want ignorance, people want hate. They will knowingly turn away from the truth if it's not what they want to hear. Which is exactly how we've ended up in this situation for a second term. Oh dear god, I hope that doesn't mean we're going to get more books in this series for her continued therapy. I'm a completest but I just can't. I seriously can't. I don't want to be her therapy! Because now I need more therapy. First to deal with my anxieties and second to deal with my PTSD from this series. And I don't want to be facetious, but I think just being able to finish this series gives me hope that we can get through anything. Even this second term.
My Dad has issues with the first episode of TV shows. He doesn't like to spend the time getting to know the lay of the land. He wants the story to just start immediately without bothering to learn character names or relationships or any details that might be relevant. No matter how many times I explain that this worldbuilding is important for the audience to form a relationship with the characters which will pay off in later episodes he almost always will declare by episode two that "this episode is so much better." Sigh. It's a cross I will forever bear. On the other hand, his weird predilection for being thrown into a story with no context means that Queenie should have been the show for him. It wasn't. I don't know who this show is for. I tuned in because of the commentary on how calling Queenie the black Bridget Jones was doing the show a disservice. And it is, because one bunny suit and Sally Phillips does not make this Bridget Jones. In fact I would willingly watch the abysmal Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason several times versus watch this show again. This show is just so depressing. Queenie wallows in bad life decisions as a result of not dealing with trauma. A trauma whose reveal is drawn out so long that you think it has to be really bad, sexual abuse, physical abuse, something earth-shattering. Well, let me save you the trouble of having to watch this piece of shit. Her mother left her alone so that her partner wouldn't hurt Queenie. Now, yes, you can have severe abandonment issues which lead to relationship problems later in life, but compared with what was happening with her mother and what could have happened to her, Queenie comes across as an entitled bitch who might just be the most self-centered character I've ever seen in a television show. A show that every aspect of it is a mess. First, there's just the confusion that is this show. You don't know who anyone is and therefore you don't care. The texts and memes and messages that flash up on the screen are too quickly removed to be read and are in such color and font choices that they can't be read even if you cared to. Everything is just whirling confusion. The visuals of this series are just a mess. But I guess they compliment the mess that is my second point, the characters are a mess and I hate them all. Queenie is not likable. She's not relatable. At eight episodes this felt like it was a hundred, half of them wallowing in shit and then half of them trying to get out of that shit. Oh, and how does she get out of that shit? By being a hypocrite and taking money from her mother who she won't talk to. And as for her job that she royally fucks up by having sex with a married coworker on the bathroom floor, what is it? What does Queenie actually do other than make bad life choices? I have no idea what her job is. And worse, I don't care. This show was about a miserable person who makes horrible decisions and then gets rewarded for admitting she needs therapy? Just no. All the no. These actors deserved better. Oh, and Cabbage Patch Kids weren't out in 1979. 
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