Book Review: ATLAS by Becca C. Smith #Atlas Tour

You have to love a story that starts with a bar fight. ATLAS by Becca C Smith is one of those kinds of books.

Kala Hicks is a member of an elite special forces team called into action to rescue the President from a terrorist attack on Air Force One. “Rescue” is a loose term, since the one doing the terrorism is the President himself. Kala’s team assesses the situation (man with a bomb strapped to his body, seems pretty clear) and Kala, as team sniper, takes the shot.

But there’s more. It turns out the President was possessed by an entity, a Titan named Atlas. Yes, that Atlas. And as the one who killed the previous Atlas, it’s now Kala’s turn.

That’s the premise behind Smith’s inventive urban fantasy story. In the myths, we always see Atlas holding the weight of the globe on his shoulders, but that’s a literal interpretation of a legend. Think of Atlas as more of a balancer between good and evil, or in his words, “without me there is only chaos.” Eons ago, the original Atlas tricked a mortal into taking his place and the chain has remained unbroken for centuries. There is even a group of immortal creatures who select and train humans to assume the role of Atlas, and thereby maintain balance in the world.

But Kala was an accident. The one who was supposed to kill the President (i.e. the previous Atlas) was her team leader (and secret lover), Jack. At the last minute, Jack choked and Kala stepped in.

The gruesome part of this bargain with the gods is that Kala/Atlas is required to perform an act of atrocity every four days. If she performs her task, the clock resets, if not…catastrophe. Think about major historical calamities: Black Death, world wars, earthquakes—all the result of an Atlas not doing his duty.

Told in close third-person from Kala’s point of view, Smith takes us on a wild ride of Angels and Demons, old gods and new, magic and mayhem. One reviewer nailed it as Bourne Identity meets Supernatural.

Oh, and as much as you think you can predict the ending, you will not see it coming.

David Bruns is the creator of the sci-fi series  The Dream Guild Chronicles, and one half of the Two Navy Guys and a Novel blog series about co-writing the military thriller, Weapons of Mass Deception. Check out his website for a free sample of his work.