Blake had to go and get picked up by Tor, didn't she? In my review of The Atlas Six, I said I wouldn't read a sequel unless it was professionally edited and here we are. Good for her, truly. However, for the third book, I demand not only a pro editor, but a mean one.

Loved the initiation ritual the book starts with where each remaining member of the Six 1v1s their mental projection of another. Novel way to sow discord, very dramatic. Interesting picks for who they faced too, especially Reina and especially Callum. Really set my favourite bastard up to live his best drunk mess life for most of the book.

The problem is that, with only a few exceptions, the plot stops after the initiation ritual. It, in fact, goes backward! In the final chapter of Paradox,

Libby returns (more or less through her own volition, off-page) and the gang completes a year of even less consequential academic study before readying themselves to face the mysterious Forum.

In fanfiction, we might call this a very long drabble.

How to write an Atlas scene:
Character A walks up to Character B struggling to cut their eggs or something else domestic.
A: "I hate you."
B: "I'm already bored of/too good for this conversation."
A: "Ironic. The human heart is so weak. Like God, it craves that which must destroy it. Not that I care."
B: "Get to the fucking point."
A: "Together, our powers could reverse the polarity of the archives."
B: "Ah, so you need my help? And I thought you hated me."
A: "I explicitly do not care about you despite spending every day sequestered together for two years. Meet me in the archives tonight. I'm leaving now so Character C can bump into me in the hallway and repeat this."

Sadly for the characterisation, almost all of the Six can and do play both A and B at various points. I am begging these characters to give a fuck. Reina, Nico, and Tristan do have goals but they spend more time negging their colleagues than working towards any. In The Atlas Six, they were learning about each other so the arguments were fresh. Blake is capable of having her characters draw blood in interesting ways but the opportunities - even a ball! - were squandered scratching at old scars.

Two characters did shine through with fun development though. Libby flipped from skippable to not at the end of her side-quest via the scandalous

Dark Side twist

and Dalton's little self-discovery in the final pages punched his personality up into someone I could actually believe might hold Parisa's interest. With those two elevated, Tristan, whose personality I couldn't describe with a knife to my throat, now occupies my least favourite character spot. (Nevermind, I just remembered Atlas exists.)

The pattern in those moments of sunshine, however, is that they all occur, again, solely in the book's final chapters. If The Atlas Complex doesn't feature at least three of the Six screaming at or fucking each other by the halfway point, I'm out.