The Atlas Complex Out Tomorrow!

5 Fun Facts about Olivie Blake and The Atlas Series

The Atlas Six is the first in a bestselling fantasy series by Olivie Blake. The book introduces six powerful young magic users who are vying for membership in the secretive Alexandrian society, which protects and contributes to the archives of the Library of Alexandria. Each of the six magical candidates have a rare specialty that sets them apart, as well as an underlying personal motivation for pursuing the wealth, power, and knowledge that comes with joining the exclusive Society. The Atlas Complex (coming out tomorrow!) is the heart-shattering final installment to the thrilling trilogy. Here are five fun facts about the author and her work.  

1. She uses a pen name.

Olivie Blake is the pseudonym of Alexene Farol Follmouth. She was born and raised in the San Francisco area in a biracial household; her mother immigrated from the Philippines. Blake has said that her parents didn't consider writing to be a responsible career choice. So she initially went to law school. When that didn't work out, she took an uninspiring job in commercial real estate and writing became something she did on the side to express her creativity. 

2. She got her chops writing fanfiction.  

After burning out in law school, Blake started writing fanfiction for fun. (She's not alone. See below.) She soon realized that writing was her passion and began focusing on her own material, self-publishing eight books before the Atlas series. The Atlas Six was also initially self-published. But in 2021, after going viral on TikTok and Twitter, it was picked up by Tor Books.

Other famous authors who got their start writing fanfic:

• E. L. James—Fifty Shades of Grey started out as Twilight fanfiction with James writing under the pseudonym of Snowqueens Icedragon.
• Meg Cabot—Before writing The Princess Diaries, the author dabbled in the vast universe of Star Wars
• Naomi Novik—The author of the Temeraire series co-founded the Organization for Transformative Works, a group dedicated to supporting fanworks and fan cultures.
• Anna Todd—In 2014, Simon & Schuster paid six figures to acquire Todd's After series which was originally written as One Direction
• Marissa Meyer—Before publishing her bestselling series, The Lunar Chronicles, the author wrote fanfiction set in the world of Sailor Moon.
• Rainbow Rowell—Her novel Fangirl is about fanfiction writing twins and her Harry Potter-esque Simon Snow series is a spinoff based both on the fanfiction in Fangirl and her own Harry Potter fanfiction.

3. Blake writes YA books under her real name.

After publishing The Atlas Six, but before it went viral, Blake, aka Alexene Farol Follmouth, scored a book deal for her YA rom-com My Mechanical Romance. It's the story of Bel and Teo, two teens who meet in the robotics club and, despite their differences, find romance. The book explores both the challenges girls of color face in STEM and the vulnerability of first love.

Twelfth Knight, coming out this summer, centers on Vi, a teenage girl who adopts a masculine alter ego to play her favorite MMOPRG (multiplayer online role-playing game). When Jack, a popular football player from her school, joins the play, Vi is alarmed to discover that their online characters are surprisingly well matched. 

4. The Atlas Six was partly inspired by The Secret History.  

Donna Tartt's story about murder within a secret society at an elite college is often credited as a seminal text inspiring the popularity of the dark academia genre. Blake has referred to The Atlas Six as a "response" to that story. In particular, she says that she tried to derive the "certain emptiness" of that scenario with the premise of "let's buy into the stakes and not question the ethics of the outside world." In book two, The Atlas Paradox, Blake expanded her characters' scope and added depth to their motivations. And she has said that she continues that evolution into The Atlas Complex as well.

5. Several of her previously self-published books are now available in print.

Thanks to the success of The Atlas series, Tor Books has republished Blake's following standalone titles:

• Alone with You in the Ether: For Regan and Aldo, life has been a matter of resigning themselves to the blueprints of inevitability—until they meet.
• Masters of Death: Viola Marek is a struggling real estate agent. She's also a vampire. But her biggest problem is the haunted house she's currently trying to sell.
• One For my Enemy: In modern-day Manhattan, two rival witch families fight to maintain control of their respective criminal empires.

She's also working on new material and we can't wait to see what she's got in store.

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Read more by Ashly Moore Sheldon