No Awaken online

narrator amazing as ever but some of the later voices are quite smilar. Cant really remember any of the secondary characters. not really any hold to story. The whole game aspect of the book seems to be lost with it having very little to do with story.

5 people found this helpful

Great listen! more please!

Concept/world-building – 4
Plot – 4
Character – 5
Dialogue – 5
Prose – 5
Conflict/resolution – 4
Overall rating 4.5


I picked this up as Luke's highly recommended in the litrpg facebook groups. So, when the audio was put up for pre-order with Luke Daniels as the narrator I nabbed it quick.

It's a long listen, so it did take me a while. But it was well worth it.

Plot

For me, the start to anything takes a while, and I do admit this was a little slower for me than usual, but it's more than worth it.

Where the world that Marcus actually lives in, isn't very well defined or spoken about much. The interaction with his friends at the start and then into the game is. I enjoyed all what each character brought to the story, and more from the NPC's.

Once the story really does start to move forwards, you get the experience of Luke’s gaming and background as the world of Ascend Online develops, bits of history and information are peppered in just the right places so not to feel like too much of an info dump and you are as excited as the players for the challenges they’re about to face.

It’s got enough crafting, fighting and loot to make all the gamers want more, and the stats read out aren’t as heavy as some other litrpg books. It doesn’t slow the pacing at all, and Luke does a great job with reading them so they’re also not just hard core skill lists. The story telling around these alone helps make this a book to remember.

Character

There wasn’t quite enough of the ‘real’ world for me. I would have wanted some more interaction with it through Marcus, even if it meant he had to log off once. However, each of the characters that Marcus/Lyrian enter the game with are well defined enough once he meets back up with them in the game.

As for them being supporting characters, they’re pretty great all by themselves. As for a fav one, I’d have to say Natasha has a spot, but defo Amaranth has the biggest. (sp)

Dialogue

I thought all the characters had decent dialogue. And also with Luke narrating, they were a breeze to listen to, each with their own personalities which really shined through. Luke did a great job with the ladies in the group and also with the demons and other worldly creatures. I did however think that the two overlords of the game were brother and sister at first, till I realised they were sisters.

Graves’ character drawl was also really good to listen to. Awesome job from both narrator and writer in design of the bad guys and in the way he really stood out in the narration.

Conflict/Resolution

I think because this has so much scope for the series, that there’s always going to be underlying threads we don’t see tied up. But the overall conflict in this book was left with a satisfying ending. Even if I did want more of the book and story world.
You can’t expect me to listen to almost 18 hours of something and not come away with a book hangover! Omg give me more!

I am glad I picked this up. And I really do look forward to more in this series from both Lukes’

10 people found this helpful

A Cardboard Cutout

Ascend Online Book 1 is what I call a cardboard cutout of a story. The characters are flat, the detail is poor, and the story is wooden.

6 long term friends go on an adventure. At no time is their real world life described, the basis of their personalities explained, or how they can afford to up and leave the real world for a virtual one explained adequately. They dont feel like theyve been together forever. And for some reason they all appear to defer to one guy in the group in decision making and leadership. We arent looking at 6 people playing a game. We're looking at 1 guy with 5 others in the order of assistants or possibly willing slaves with no will of their own.

There isnt much detail to anything. Ive listened to the entire thing and couldn't tell you what anyone's hair colour or body build is. Who is the tallest member of the group? The most attractive? What annoying querks do people have? Their virtues? Where are people from? Ive lived mostly in the South of England. That has had a huge impact on my personality. I think the characters are American...maybe. I should be able to provide something like detail but can barely remember anyone's actual name because I dont have a picture of that person in my head.

The Land has a cast of unique characters and Richter has personality and humour in spades. Awaken Online makes a point of fully fleshing out each individual character, their emotional and psycological issues. And Devine Dungeon provides a unique look from the other side as a Dungeon is more or less the protagonist of the story. Ascend Online though feels like grinding away 1000 hours in one of those old school MMORPGs like Legend of Mir or old school WoW only less distinctive. You could easily give this one a miss. There's better out there.

And the narrator. He did his best work while reading The Iron Druid Chronicles and, like Kevin Hearne, he peaked in the early books, growing less distinctive and proficient as time goes on, though I admit that he might just have been hampered by the poor quality of writing.

3 people found this helpful

Carpet F-bombing

This book has a good plotline and I loved the narrator, however, it is let down by poor writing (for example the author uses the word "spiderlings" ten times in a single paragraph, and when he finally switches to a synonym, he uses it several times in a row again) and the sheer amount of unnecessary profanity.

2 people found this helpful

Disappointing

Not very exciting or original. Coversations poorly written, they do not sound natural at all. Having picked this up after Awaken Online, the books feel miles apart in terms of quality.

2 people found this helpful

A fun adventure!

Would you consider the audio edition of Ascend Online to be better than the print version?

Certainly easier to enjoy in a casual setting. It makes walking to work more fun.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Ascend Online?

The climactic final battle was suitably gripping I'd say.

What does Luke Daniels bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

A good flow of narrative that leaves me free to do other things.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I chuckled a few times at some of the funnier bits, and was suitably eager to listen to the action scenes.

Any additional comments?

A very entertaining story, one that I hope to see continued soon.

1 person found this helpful

a story I had to persevere through

this was a dull story, that picks up towards the end (from chapter 31). no character progression - and no personalities to make them memorable. the most I picked up is that from a group of ... I don't know, one is terrified of spiders, and a half giant has good words of wisdom. the death penalty is too soft and doesn't really count as a death, when it's basically a teleport. the characters react as if it's the end instead of a minor inconvenience that it is.
the story is essentially fight, upgrade montage, fight, upgrade, repeat. no character development.
Luke Daniels does an exceptional performance with a slew of bland characters, the downside is that there are so many characters, the accents get muddled and samey at times, if it wasn't for "said #####" in the text, I would have gotten who said what completely wrong.
I had great hope for this, but I won't be continuing with the series.

Aww Yeah

When a book has a line like no setting forest fires to kill the spiders you know it's going to either be great or terrible. Fortunately this book is awesome, can't wait to get book 2

Just not particularly interesting

Maybe I was spoiled by my first litRPG being Dakota Krout's Ritualist but when I returned to the genre and looked online for the best one this was recommended and I had high hopes. I was disappointed.

For one, almost none of the players, except the villain, treat the game like a game. The mourn their friends dying intensely even when they've already respawned back at the base. They never seem to log out for a break and really you could remove the stats and this would work better as a straight-up fantasy novel.

You'll also find words like face or shoulder or cave get repeated a lot in a short span of time. I know books like this are self published without editing but when you get 5 'shoulder's in three sentences it can be jarring. Synonyms and 'it's would have helped.

The main character's adventures were filled with deus ex machina and again, not very game-like. There's also no humour at any point that I can recall. Made it a real slog to read compared to Krout's jumplomancer going round thrusting his codpiece of holding at things!

I finished the book not giving a toss if the characters lived or died and I won't be reading the sequel. Lots of people recommend this book highly including people whose judgment I would trust so maybe there's something good here that just didn't click for me.

Welcome to virtual reality

Just amazing story, loved all the time while listening. Interesting characters, so many details. Had to get the rest books 😁