Author Olivie Blake tells us about The Atlas Paradox and The Atlas Six TV show

Olivie Blake is the author of the best-selling dark academia book The Atlas Six, which in the past few years has taken the world of fantasy by storm. It’s been republished by Tor Books and is getting a straight-to-series order adaptation at Amazon. The second book in the series, The Atlas Paradox, comes out on October 25.

Earlier this year, we spoke with Olivie about Paradox, the television show, and much more! This interview has been edited for length and clarity:

Federica Bocco: Book 1 ends with a shocking twist. Atlas, the powerful medeian who’s recruited the protagonists into the Alexandrian Society, looks like he may not be a mentor, but the ultimate villain. What can you say about this?

Olivie Blake: We found out that someone thinks Atlas is the bad guy, who is the actual bad guy is still up for interpretation, and I really wanted to write in a world where there were no clear heroes and villains and everybody like the heroes of the book are still being tested in the same ways that the villains are.

I didn’t want to just ask what’s the larger right or wrong, but like let’s look at this from the perspective of someone who thinks they’re right and maybe isn’t. In this scenario where it’s constantly being asked of us to be ethical in society. What do we do, and how much do we actually think about what we’re doing and how ethical is it and can you even make an ethical choice? How can you really make ethical choices in this system?

FB: How is The Atas Paradox different from The Atlas Six?

OB: I think that Paradox is a funnier book, it’s definitely a dark comedy. Being inside their heads was much funnier to me because we’ve now removed the stakes, there is not a murder on the line. And it’s a very sort of existential, it’s got a real ring of quarter life crisis to it, they’re just like… now what do we do? We know we’re going to be out in the world. And then what? And so yeah, the the bigger question of like how do I exist in the world is kind of intrinsically funny.

FB: The six protagonists were sort of secluded in the house in book 1, which felt almost claustrophobic at times. Will we see them interact more with the outside world in Paradox?

OB: Book one is intentionally supposed to be claustrophobic, it’s kind of the same concept as Westworld where you start only seeing less world and then you start to zoom out and understand how the ethics of that particular park are woven into the ethics of the larger society. So it’s the same here but I wanted you to focus in on just the six people to watch the ways that their morality kind of shifted, because if they’re existing in the real world, then it’s much easier to remember that, you know, killing people is bad. So, part of it is supposed to feel a little bit like Big Brother, and I compare it to The Bachelor all the time because it’s just like that.

So in Book 2, they’re not completely in the world yet but you do get to see a little bit more. There are a few field trips outside of the house, and then Book 3 they’re going to be completely out in the world. So we’re just progressively zooming out further to see the way things look like and, but I wanted to establish what we’re dealing with in a very isolated setting.

FB: So what about their time inside the house? Reading Book 1, I couldn’t help but feel that the library was more a character on its own than a setting.

OB: You’ll read more about it and find out more about the way that it works. Yes, so this is another thing that’s three books in the making. So, you have a little bit more people starting to wonder what’s going on in Book 2 but it’s not answered yet. But one thing I want to always bring it back to is “knowledge is carnage.” It’s a flashy catchphrase but also it’s a little bit of an allegory for existing in the state that [the protagonists] do which is conceivably having answers to any possible question and how that can almost eat you alive.

FB: Will there be any more points of view in Paradox, apart from the main six characters?

OB: Ezra is part of the narrative now. So we’ll hear from him in widening the world we’re also widening the cast a little bit. We’re going to have a Gideon POV. And there’s one more.

FB: How involved are you with the TV show?

OB: My job is to figure out which events should go in which episode. I’m not the writer. My job is just trying to decide the like larger vision of how we tell the story, which is good. […] When I was talking to producers [months ago], a lot of them were like, you know classically we want to introduce a narrative with a hero, you want to have one main protagonist and they were like, I would argue that Libby is the protagonist of these books and I was like, absolutely not. […] Other things that came up were: do we do a cold open or do we follow one character at a time? Would we want to do like one episode focusing on one character, as opposed to just following through the events of the book? And I was like I think it’s important to view them as an ensemble, like they are, they together are the protagonists. But how that actually happens, we’ll see.

FB: It’s wonderful that your input is being valued and that you’re being consulted. That’s something that, unfortunately, is often a rarity in the world of fantasy. 

OB: I don’t want to be too involved because […] this is not my medium, you know I’m not trained in film, I don’t know how to translate a book to TV, that’s someone else’s job and I’m happy to leave it to them. I do think that some of the best adaptations are the ones that are not necessarily true to the text on the page, they’re just true to the soul of the work. I think [SyFy’s] The Magicians TV show was an excellent adaptation that was not very similar to the books at all. And I also really love The Little Women adaptation by Greta Gerwing because by making certain choices of how they tell the story they create a new art form. And that’s what I want: I want to watch a show that’s art, not just my book but on screen.

FB: Thank you, Olivie! 

We certainly can’t wait to find out more details about the TV show, which is still in the early stages of development. The Atlas Paradox, on the other hand, comes out on October 25.

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