 Here's what happens in chapter one of the Atlantis Grail Qualify. We learned that Atlantis was real. It was a super advanced technology that actually had space flight, and it was on Earth 12,000 years ago before their continent, which was now in the Bermuda Triangle, there was some sort of disaster which caused it to be destroyed. And then all of the people left and they fled and colonized another planet, which is also called Atlantis. We also learned that there's an asteroid heading for Earth, and it's going to hit in 19 months, and it will kill everyone on the planet. Then a bunch of Atlanteans came to Earth, and for whatever reason, despite their advanced technology, they cannot destroy this asteroid, but they have enough time and enough space on their ships to evacuate 10 million people from Earth. They don't have time to make multiple trips, so they can only take the 10 million in the one trip. And so in order to determine who gets to be on the few spots that will, you know, get to survive, they have a big competition. Basically, you have to be a teenager just to qualify, and you also have to go through a set of trials. The main character is a girl named Gwen. Full name is Gwen of your lark because this is a young adult novel. Of course, the main character has a stupid name. She has three siblings who are named Georgie, Gracie, and Gordon, and they are collectively called the Forgees, and they are all trying to qualify for one of the spots that go to Atlantis. Their mom is also a former opera singer who is currently dying of cancer. This is all covered in the first chapter. Yeah, I'll tell you right now. This book is pretty nutty. Like, the later ones might be different. I don't know. I only read the first one. Maybe they're better. Maybe they're worse. The main reason I'm not going through the entire series is because the first book was already obnoxiously long, and I just, I don't feel like spending that much time going through it. Like, it's about, I don't know, 25% longer than it should be. But in spite of that, it is really goofy and weird and funny. You know, I did genuinely enjoy this book. If I had to sum it up very briefly, I would say it's about the main character Gwen going through a series of deadly trials that don't make any actual sense so that she and her siblings can survive the destruction of Earth. These trials include riding a hoverboard through gigantic tunnels which were built under the ocean floor while those tunnels randomly flood and then get drained. She also rides a hoverboard across Los Angeles while explosive drones are chasing them. Learning to sing in order to control advanced technology. We'll talk more about that in a bit. Stopping a space shuttle from crashing and becoming a suspected terrorist. Well, okay, that last one isn't actually a trial officially, but it is a thing that happens to Gwen in the story. I'm gonna have to go into spoilers, like, pretty, pretty heavy spoilers in a little bit. But the short verdict will be that Atlantis Grail, qualify, is very silly and it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's also earnest. Like, you know, you can tell that the author was trying when she wrote it. Like, there are some moments that are a little bit thrilling, you know, not a lot, but a little bit. The characters do have some actual personality. They're not total blank slates. And there is some heart in their interactions, especially the interaction between the Lark siblings. Like, you can tell they are family and they do really love and care about each other and they want to help each other as much as they can. And learning some stuff about Atlantis was kind of neat. Like, there is some neat stuff in their culture and in their technology that I just thought was kind of cool. But the real highlight of the story was the goofiness. Like, again, there's just so much stuff in here that doesn't make a lot of sense, but it just made me chuckle. The low point was, as I mentioned, the obnoxious length, because it is very, very obnoxiously long. But, I don't know, if any of this sounds fun, I'd say maybe give it a shot. But, I don't know, once again, heavy spoilers for the whole book ahead. SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! So, like I said, this book follows Gwen going through trials and training so that she can be deemed worthy of going to Atlantis. You know, there's limited spots on the refugee ships and she wants to be one of them. And all of her siblings are also competing because they all want to go and be safe. And, I'll tell you right now, the whole thing with Atlantis doesn't make sense. Like, there's no evidence of any sort of super advanced civilization like that other than some old legends. Like, if these people showed up and claimed that they were originally from Earth and that they went and colonized another planet thousands of years ago, people would call bullshit. Like, archeologists, linguists, historians, anthropologists, like, some of them would call bullshit. Like, some of them would probably say, hey wait, those aren't humans, those are clearly aliens. And, I mean, this book doesn't say anything about that, but that's my theory about it. Maybe the later ones reveal that, I don't know. If you've read them, feel free to let me know in the comments section. Also, the Atlantean space shuttles are shaped like, you know, flying saucers, like stereotypical alien flying saucers. So, I think maybe this book is implying that Atlanteans have been watching and visiting Earth occasionally throughout history, but I don't know, it's not confirmed here. But at the start of the story, Gwen and the other Gs head off to a testing center. And they know that if they get selected and they make it to Atlantis, they're never going to see their parents again. So it's actually kind of a somber moment. Like, they say, alright, goodbye mom and dad. And like, if they fail out, then they get sent home. But if they die along the way, or if they wind up getting selected, then they're just going off. They're never going to see their parents again. And they all get selected in the opening qualification round, but they all get put into different quadrants. Because you see, Atlantean society is divided into four different groups. Those groups will focus on different philosophies. They compete against each other. And they practice different martial arts. A little bit more on that later. The four quadrants, they don't have actual names. They're just called red, blue, green, and yellow. Those are the houses from Harry Potter, you uncreative hack. Now the four Lark siblings all wind up in four different quadrants, you know, which maybe could have heralded a rivalry between the four of them. But the quadrants all seem to get along okay, so it doesn't really matter. But what really got me early in the book and made me think, okay, this is bad, but it's kind of funny bad, is that the initial qualifying round right at the beginning is first a written exam, which makes sense. The Atlanteans are testing them for intelligence. And then they have a voice test to see if they can sing. And the reason for that is that most Atlantean technology is made of this metal called oracalcum, and oracalcum is controlled via singing. Like they describe it as it takes sound waves from your voice and then converts it into other energy. Okay. So basically throughout all of this, the Atlanteans are testing for three main things. Intelligence, physical prowess, and singing capability. Like there's also, you know, they're trying to show how determined they are to do this. Like they're willing to go through all this crap just to become someone who gets to live on Atlantis. You know, they're testing them to see if they're worthy. But the thing is, if intelligence and singing are a really big part of it, then a disproportionate number of the people who are going to be in this competition should be theater kids and band kids. And once I realized that it stopped being intimidating, you know, all the bullies and everything that Gwen had to deal with and the other kids who she's like, oh, they might kill me in the next competition. They're not scary after that. They're not. Like, look, I was a theater kid and even I was not scared of the other theater kids. It's, no. That said, this detail actually kind of works. Like the Lark siblings are all really, really good at singing. It actually makes sense that they would be able to do that because, number one, they've studied music for years. Like they've all studied different instruments and stuff. And also, like I said before, their mom was an opera singer. So it does make sense that they would be good at this. I think that, okay, that's an actual justification. And pretty early on, the kids learned to use hoverboards. And hoverboards feature prominently throughout the whole rest of the book. But the thing is, like all their technology, hoverboards are controlled by singing. So during these life and death battles, where characters are trying to fly along as fast as they can to avoid the rushing water coming behind them or trying to avoid gunfire or something, everyone is just singing. And I'm sorry, I can't take that seriously. Like when it got to that, I just started imagining everything as like a really crappy off-Broadway musical, you know? Like I was imagining this scene where like the main character and someone else are on a hoverboard and people are chasing them and someone goes like, they're gaining on us and the main character has to sing to make you go faster. So she's going faster, faster, faster. And then they want to like show off that the lead actress can hold a high note so they just have her hold it for like 10 seconds. And she goes faster. And they just like hold it like that for a while. And then everyone's like, whoa, you're so impressive, main character. About a third of the way through the book, there's a moment where some Atlantean shuttles are about to crash because they got bombed by Earth terrorists. And Gwen is nearby, so she manages to actually control one and land it with just her voice. And that's supposed to be impossible because like she's born with perfect pitch and a perfect voice basically, which can also allow her to control people if she ever learns to use it. Like kind of like in Dune, you know, you just say something to someone and they're forced to do what you say. But yeah, and that's supposed to be impossible because only the Imperial family on Atlantis has a perfect voice now, but Gwen just also has it. But one thing I did like about this plot point is not just like, because it's not just main character, learn she has this power and then she's the best thing ever and everyone loves her and yada, yada. Like she does have this power, but she still has to work pretty hard to master it. Like she spends a lot of time training it once she learns that this is what she has. And on top of that, she has to work really hard to be passable in a lot of other stuff. Like she's a fairly intelligent girl. We do see that a couple of times. She comes up with weird plans to survive the trials and stuff. So it makes sense that she would pass the written exam. She has to work really hard to master her voice and she has to work really hard to be even passable with all the physical stuff. So like, she's kind of annoying, but she does have a definable character and she, again, she has to really work to get where she's at. You know, Gwen isn't a great character, but she's not a non-character and she's not too perfect. She's just not super likable, you know, she's kind of annoying. But I think that's great. I'm not even joking or being sarcastic or anything. Like I genuinely think that it's great that there are a few parts of this book that are genuinely good because that makes it, you know, more enjoyably bad rather than just boring or annoyingly bad when it gets to, you know, the stupid stuff. And another big part of their training, like to become proper Atlanteans, is that they have to spend a lot of time learning Atlantean martial arts. Like, there was a lot of time spent with them memorizing forms and sparring with each other. And there's also four weapons that Atlanteans learn to use. And they all learn all of the weapons, but each quadrant specializes in one. Those weapons are the gun, the cord, which is a length of knotted rope that you can also, like, tie together to make nets and stuff in the middle of battle, the blade, which can be a knife or a sword, and the shield. And shield is actually like these metal sleeves, basically, that, like, cover their arms and can block bullets and stuff. And Gwen is placed in the yellow quadrant, so she gets a cord. And, I mean, I do see how that can be useful in combat, but that seems to... it seems she got the short end of the stick there. Also, it wasn't that long ago I made a video on how to world-build martial arts, and I did that specifically because so many fantasy and science fiction books just completely ignore that aspect of world-building. Why is it that this book of all of them is actually the one that put in some time and effort into this aspect? It's kind of... I don't know. I don't know, but you know what, that happened. And the four quadrants, again, have four different weapons, and they try to do a rock, paper, scissors thing with them, but it doesn't work, you know? Because, like, gun beats blade, blade beats cord, cord beats shield, and then shield beats gun. But the thing is, the shield, again, that just covers your arms, and, like, that'll protect your arms if they get shot at them. You can, like, hold them up to protect yourself, that doesn't cover your hands, or your neck, or your head, or your torso, or your legs, like, you just... just shoot them in the legs, guys, with the gun. I'm pretty sure gun beats cord as well. While you wasted your time with that piece of shit, I studied the cord! Like, really, ask yourself, would you rather go into battle with a gun or a net? And I know there's going to be some smartass in the comments going like, oh, I want to be yellow quadrant with a net, like, fuck off, SpongeBob. Now, you'll notice I haven't talked about the plot that much, and that's because there technically is a plot here, but it is pretty thin, you know? It's like, there's a lot of training, and then a couple of trials spread throughout, but there's not much beyond that. Like, Gwen gets suspected of being a terrorist for a little while, but her name is cleared pretty quick. She gets bullied by a while by some other kids that they call hash taggers, and no, I'm not going to explain what that means in this context. She starts a love triangle with a brooding Atlantean bad boy who's supposed to be like the ultimate warrior and an earth boy who she used to go to school with who is also an athlete and also a terrorist. Like, actually, he's actually a terrorist. And he's also possibly trained as a super soldier by the American government. I don't know, man. And the trials themselves, while they are probably the closest thing this book has to exciting, thrilling moments, don't make a lot of sense. Like, they're trying to prepare these kids for lives on Atlantis. Like, there's not a war or anything that we are made aware of. Like, I thought there was going to be a twist or something about how Atlantis is at war, and they're actually taking these kids to just use them as cannon fodder, you know? Because they clearly don't respect or like these kids that much, but, you know, they could be useful. Like, I was expecting that to be a twist, but it doesn't happen in this book. They just have to prove themselves worthy of being Atlanteans, but even once they go to the planet, they're not going to be citizens. You know, like, they're going to be refugees, and Atlantean society is... They're kind of like ancient Greek city-states where the actual citizens had like the right to vote and protections in the law and stuff, but they were only a minority of the population. So, even if the kids actually win and get to leave the planet before it's destroyed, they aren't going to be in a great situation. But these trials are just, they're just so weird. Like, the trials include riding hoverboards across Los Angeles while traps try to kill you, and there's other, and there's limited spots, like only a certain number of people can actually make it to the next trial during that, so candidates are trying to kill each other, too, and the candidates that have guns seem to be the biggest threat, because like I said, gun beats everything! Gun beats cord! These trials don't really seem to test them or prepare them in any way, though. Like, they're just very dangerous, deadly competitions. And why did this author write about that? Because the Hunger Games made it look cool, I guess. But, I don't know, at the very least, the Hunger Games acknowledged that the games were shitty and didn't make a lot of sense. But that said, at least Atlantis Grail did make a situation where it makes sense for the competitors to be willing to risk death and also to be willing to kill each other. Whereas something like the testing, they were killing each other, but there's like no justification for it in the story at all. But if I knew an asteroid was coming to kill me in a year and a half, and this was my only chance to live a proper life, I might be willing to do some unpleasant shit, too. So, this whole book just boils down to a series of strange events, half-baked world-building, and unidimensional characters who feel like high school stereotypes from 80s movies. It makes no sense, but because there's so much effort put in, I found it very enjoyable. I really did. Here's some smaller details that I need to bring up. One hoverboard can carry 17 tons. Why were they designed to carry so much weight? I don't know. You think you could design them to carry less and it would require less resources to be easier, but, you know, that is a thing that happened. There's a kid that Gwen makes friends with who is paraplegic, but he learns to fight and move around using a hoverboard. He kind of holds it in his arms and moves around. And he's singing while he's not doing this. Gwen's brother who gets put in the gun quadrant tells her he became good at aiming because he doesn't actually look at the target when he's shooting. I don't understand how that works, either. The Atlanteans all dye their hair using real gold. Like real actual gold, like the stuff that coins used to be made of. All Atlanteans are vegan, except for poor people on the coast who eat fish. The city of Manhattan has sank into the ocean, but people still go to work there. And so on. There's a lot of small details like that throughout the whole book, which are just bizarre, but in a funny way. I don't feel like reading the entire series. I guess I could, but I don't really feel like it. I could go deep into everything, but why? What's the point? Sometimes a book is just a weird, inane experience that you go through and go, huh, that was kind of silly and fun, and then you move on from it. If you want to check it out, like if you want to check out a book that is silly and stupid, but still kind of entertaining, then I'd say go for it, you know, give it a shot. But you don't have to. And I don't know if I'd recommend the rest of the series, but anyways that's about it. So hail Satan, hail Iowa, and thank you for your time. The patron names, they're on screen right now. 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