Ascend Online (Ascend Online, #1) (2024)

"Corporeal detachment in 3... 2... 1..."
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I still feel reading a LitRPG is kind of a cheating... I mean, it's more like playing an awesome RPG game rather than reading a book, and gets dangerously addictive. Ascend Online is my second RPG series (Kong's Chaos Seeds being the first), and now that I'm finished with the first book, I'm having a hard time understanding all the negative reviews. I loved the massive world, and Chmilenko's way of thoughtfully making sure we're exploring a tiny fraction of it to ensure future expansions, and surprisingly good writing, especially for a LitRPG.

"Are you aware you are naked?"

First couple of chapters establishes a futuristic framework for a new VR gameplay, and once the team introduction is out of the way, we get to dive in to the world of AO using our first person protagonist Marcus AKA Lyrian, and the rest of his team. The narrative is more action oriented, and the author takes a lot of time carefully explaining various interactions in vivid manner. However, there was very little base building (which happens to be my favorite aspect). Hopefully, next books will fix this.

"Sometimes an honest day's work was all it took to raise people's spirits."

I don't have any complaints regarding the characters other than saying the number of the cast getting a bit too large to keep track of. At this rate, we'd have too many characters quite soon, and might end up causing some confusion when it comes to remembering all the names. Skill development and leveling system appear quite intriguing, with lot more to expand towards to. Overall, I think this is an interesting beginning to what hopefully would be an amazing series.

"Achievement Unlocked - Nudist For you, clothes are 'optional' "

Not great. This book reads more like a creative experiment than a real stab at a novel – the characters communicate by constantly swearing, exclaiming at anything that slightly surprises them, and engaging in painfully corny banter.
I get that this book's target audience is the nerd/gamer community, but I think Chmilenko is selling himself short. The idea of the book itself is solid, but the execution needs work. Ascend Online doesn't offer any real insight or thought, and the creativity Chmilenko brings to the table seems like wasted potential. I'm not crazy about his style, but I will be far more likely to read and enjoy Chmilenko's future work if he practices bringing out that "deeper layer" that separates ordinary fiction from great fiction.Getting an editor to revise the story would also really help.

Middle of the road LitRPG, or totally solid for what it is. It's a standard game filled with massively multiplayer role-players and all the normal stupid greed comes out as well as the altruistic heroism.

Leveling up is pretty standard, as is the enjoyment.

As for me, I think this is absolute comfort food. All the game, all the adventure, for less of the time investment. :)

This one I read very quickly, I started and finished within 24 hours because this book ticked all my boxes – it’s kind of audience specific, but for the right audience it’ll be a lot of fun.

This book was reviewed and selected for the semi finalist position by Bookworm Blues, and what I really love about that is the fact that the person who read it admitted they do not play games, do not like games, and have no background in this what so ever, but they still gave it 4/5 stars and selected it for semi finals – that’s really cool. I love people find a book that breaks their genre preferences, or at least gives them an appreciation for the genre.

I listened to this on audiobook and OMFG Luke Daniels smashes this performance, I loved it! If you like audiobooks and LitRPG is your thing check this one out for sure.

Review link for Bookworm Blues : http://www.bookwormblues.net/2017/10/...

Characters:

* Marcus – he’s our main character, I think he’s somewhere in his early 30’s and is a pretty ‘average joe’ gamer kind of person. He’s likable and pretty easy to relate to, he’s also a pretty experienced gamer and chooses the class “Spellsword” which is a warrior and mage mashup.

* Marcus’s group – Peter, Deckard, Zach, Heron, and Misha – they don’t get a ton of page time so you don’t get to know them well, but they are all pretty standard people with slight variances to give them different personalities.

* Amaranth – probably my favorite character, he’s a Familiar one of the characters binds to them in the game. I always love Familiars, and when they are intelligent and can talk and mock the person they’re bonded to all the better. Plus he’s a puma, and cats are awesome.

* Jenkins and Ritt – two NPC’s with a lot of personality that you meet early on, they train Marcus and have other useful attributes which give them a fair amount of page time

* The Bann – the leader of the the town Marcus spawns into at the beginning of the game. I like this guy too, I think he gets more page time than any of Marcus’s friends, at least it feels like it.
Some of my favorite chapters are interlude chapters where we get small POV’s from other characters/beings in the world. Because these POV’s are so different, short, and packed full of plot points and world building I get really excited when I got to them.

Plot:

Marcus and his friends find out about a virtual reality video game that has been kept secret until the day before release, extremely excited they all sign up and log in to explore a new world. What’s cool about this VR is that it’s not a headset and or hand held anything – you get into a pod and get hooked up to life support systems and are then injected with nano bots. The nano bots are what connect you to the video game, and the life support systems make sure you don’t die if you spend 24 hours or something in the game at a time.

Much of the beginning of the plot is world building and introducing you to the rules and setting of the video game, honestly this was a ton of fun for me. I watch Twitch on occasion and will watch people play games, so reading about it is also fun for me, especially when the world building is fun, fast paced, and interesting. For me the world building didn’t feel like it was bogging me down, and there isn’t a TON of page time spent on stats and figures. There’s a bit of it as you’re first introduced, but it’s only touched on from there out which leaves more room for plot and character development.

There are a couple different plots going on – there’s a diety that calls herself Creativity, she’s responsible for respawns and all the creations in the world, and her opposite Destruction who’s growing out of control and stepping over bounds trying to destroy the game and Creativity’s world.
There’s also a mysterious house in the Mages Guild who’s paying lots of money for expeditions and other suspicious activities, the main character needs to find out what’s going on and question some people. The Familiar, Amaranth, can detect lies and half truths through the heart beats of others and sends that info down the Link to his Master, it creates this awesome layer where the player gains knowledge he shouldn’t have and it makes for a tone of mystery and intrigue.

World Building:

It’s easy to go overboard with World Building in a LitRPG, but I think this book balances things really nicely. Although I would say this is a plot driven book than a character driven book, the characters aren’t bad, they have a lot of believable dialogue and interactions which is always nice in this genre.

The game is set in a standard medieval setting with classic fantasy races like orcs, elves, dwarves etc. What I wish we saw more of was the dozens of other races that were hinted at in the beginning during character creation for the main character, there were lots of unique races hinted at and I wish the group Marcus is with picked things other than orc and elf and human – bring on the rat people!

Pain is a real thing in this game, and you can’t turn it off – if you get stabbed you’re going to know it. It adds a layer of complexity for the characters to deal with, and makes them way more hesitant to go rushing into danger, or jumping off of roofs.
There’s lots of cool magic and spells and swords and creatures in this book, it’s so much fun to explore the countryside with the character – giant spiders, and goblins, and pumas, oh my!

Pacing/Prose:

This book went by so quickly for me, there’s basically no metaphor or simile, it’s a very straight forward writing style that makes the book fly by. It doesn’t feel amateur or YA either, it’s just quick. There’s cursing, so be aware of that if you’re trying to keep your reading clean or are thinking of giving it to a younger kid. The word f*ck comes up on occasion but I wouldn’t call it a super colorful book, it doesn’t come up often.

Tone:

Fun! Adventure! Fast! I’m always down for a fun book that is totally escapism, I think that’s one of the roots of why fantasy exists in the first place, and books that I can zone out and just smile through are awesome. I’ll read Guy Gavriel Kay when I want a fantasy book to stab me in the feels and leave me in the fetal position, but I have to be in the mood for it – however, I’m always in the mood to have some fun.

Audience:

For people who like LitRPG
For people who like classic fantasy elements, goblins, raids, dungeons, giant spiders, elves, dwarves, medieval setting etc.
For people who like in depth world building
For people who like fun fast paced reading with more straight forward prose
For people who like a book that’s largely one POV (there are small interludes, but mostly this is Marcs story)
For people who like intelligent/talking animal companions.
Familiar for the win!

http://weatherwaxreport.blog

Executive Summary: This was a fun listen, but nothing spectacular. I like MMOs and I like popcorn fiction and this was a decent enough blend of the two.

Audiobook: Luke Daniels is one of my favorite narrators and does his usual excellent job here. However, since this is LitRPG, there are some downsides to the unabridged format. On paper you'd scan over the various stats, character sheets and item descriptions that Mr. Daniels must painstakingly read out to you.

Full Review
I'm still not sure what I feel about LitRPG. I've been playing WoW for nearly 15 years now and I've spent a lot of time out of the game reading about the game, strategies, stats, gear, etc. So the idea of reading a book about someone playing a game works well for me. I imagine it won't work as well for others who'd rather just play a game than listen to one.

However so far my experience with the genre is that it's not being written very well. I don't have a large sample size to base that one, so I could be wrong. Just two authors so far. My main gripe is the book could have used more editing. This book has a lot of repeated words/dialogue and some cringeworthy speeches.

It also suffers a bit too much from lack of diversity. I don't necessarily mean that in terms of race or gender, but that could be applied too. I thought all of the characters in the book were fine, but they felt too much alike. They are your fairly standard non-asshat dude gamer. They were all likeable, but not everyone who games is the same. Yes some people swear a lot (I'm guilty of this myself) but not everyone talks like that constantly.

Not to mention in a group of 6 players there is only one girl. He does add some more female players later in the book, but for a book that's supposed to be set in the future I find it hard to believe the ratio of men to women players is 5:1.

That said, I wasn't picking this up to be something deep or eloquently written. I wanted a fun book and that's what I (mostly) got. I really liked that this book while focused one character added a bunch of other players working together as well as in opposition to the protagonist rather than just a bunch of NPCs and quests. I also like the idea of a game where you can shape the growth of the world so much.

I'll probably pick up book two, but I'm torn on if I want to read the side story book first or not. For now, I'll probably hold off a bit until I get the itch for another light read.

Nope!

I very much liked this book! I got so involved with the story and the characters that the day after I finished it I actually wanted to "play that game I played yesterday" only to remember that it was a book and the game didn't actually exist.

If you've ever played a MMORPG, you will love this book. If you've ever sat and watched someone else play Super Mario Brothers or Zelda for hours, you will love this book. If you like fantasy adventures, you will love this book.

Can not wait for the sequel!

Someone get this guy a thesaurus. I realize there are people out there who swear for all adjectives, but the author seems to think that everyone in the world does that, all the time. Everyone in his world does anyway (frequently multiple times per sentence) and it's very distracting. Also, not everything that's blue must be described as "azure." It's ok to say something is blue now and again, or at least some other shade of blue.

The story itself started out pretty interesting, but started dwindling off near the end to the point that I just didn't care anymore. I finished it two days ago and can't remember how it ends. The battle descriptions are far too specific to hold my interest, and the frequent attempts at "heroic" speeches by the protagonist are laughable. I can understand the NPCs treating the protagonist with heroic deference, but why do his friends? It's a bunch of people who all know each other, hang out in real life, razz each other, and know it's just a game, yet they all act like the protagonist is some awe inspiring hero.

Meh. Honestly this was quite boring. If I wanted this much detail about a video game, I would've turned my Xbox on and played myself. Seriously though, you do not need to take 3 pages to explain the subdivisions of a mana regeneration buff. Before you say it, yes, I know what LitRPG is, and I know this is part of this genre, however there are better (and less boring) ways to describe leveling, looting, experience gains, etc. Those are my favorite parts of the LitRPG books, but this was not the case with this one.

While I did kind of like the characters, I really thought the overall story was extremely boring...it just freaking dragged on and on. I almost stopped at like 30%, but just pushed through it.

Although everything about this world is totally up my nerdy alley, this story and the way it was written, was not. Do not recommend.

My original Ascend Online audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

Let me open this review by saying up front that it will be in the minority compared to other reviewers of the book. Of the over fourteen-hundred reviews (at the time of this review), seventy-eight percent are rated five stars. I’m in the four percent of the reviewers who feel the book is average; a three-star rating. I will describe why in more detail throughout the rest of the review. Based on my personal experience listening to over one hundred hours of Literary Role-Playing Game (LitRPG) books, I felt “Ascend Online” could only be described as average at best. The book is authored by Luke Chmilenko and the audiobook edition is quite well narrated by Luke Daniels; who is a very prolific audiobook narrator and it shows in this book’s narration. If you enjoy mediocre story-telling, ordinary and rather flat characters, you may find that you enjoy this book. Note, the book is the first in a series and it does come in at over four hundred and fifty pages or just shy of eighteen hours of audio. It is a rather long journey compared to other LitRPG books on the market. For me, I almost disbanded from the traveling party half-way though due to the issues covered discussed.

The book had a decent setup with a rather suspenseful opening. It also had many of the things one comes to expect from a book in this genre including a good use of character statistics and an inventory system. Unlike many other LitRPG books, this one had a likeable familiar, some unique characters and even a few different character classes. This is not saying that everything was new or interesting as the book also included many of the standard stereotypes found in this category of book such as spiders, goblins, elves, etc. In a rather crowded genre, it can be difficult to invent a new and interesting world; good job. I enjoyed a few of the quests having a time limit to complete. This gave the feeling of tension and forced the characters to often choose between like quests when they could only finish one or the other. I liked that the author mostly closed out the open story lines at the book’s completion allowing one to read this book and not feel pressured to continue the series if they so choose. There were no cliffhangers requiring you to purchase the second book. I like when authors give you this flexibility as newer books in the series are used to immerse people into the world again and not used to profit by selling more books.

I found the flow of the book at times disjointed and difficult to follow. I also felt it was overly complicated and much of it could have been told in a more condensed and concise manner. Most of the action or fighting scenes did not feel majestic or imposing. Instead they were mostly slower and less descriptive than other LitRPG books I have listened too. The characters were rather two-dimensional having few emotional aspects or any compelling backstories making them feel life-like and likeable. I understand that the first book in a series often uses a large portion to define the characters, but this story never seemed to get there. The writing style was geared more towards young adult (YA), but the strong use of vulgar language places this book in the mature category.

The book’s overall premise was something that I thought was going to flourish into a wonderful and exciting story. However, it quickly exposed itself as a rather weakly written tale where crude, sexual and vulgar language flowed from every character in nearly every sentence spoken. It started off being infrequently used, but as the book progressed it became over-the-top and unnecessary. It was not that vulgar language was used during times of extreme stress or to be expressive, not at all. This band of fantasy characters would make sailors and truckers even blush at times; no offense to either of these professions. I like the quote that states, “vulgarity is no substitute for wit” and to me it seemed the author had no other means of writing humor so they devolved into the use of vulgar language instead. There was no desire to make the party of characters feel a part of an actual fantasy setting because of the heavy use of vulgar language. Not only language, but the author also used many sexual references or innuendos throughout the book’s progression. I know the book is not directed at younger audiences, however the cover for the Kindle edition could easily be seen appealing to younger readers. Be warned, this book is only intended for mature audiences, even when much of its humor would be considered immature.

Let me turn to the book’s narration by Luke Daniels. For those not new to Audible, I’m sure you have one or more books in your library narrated by this individual; I have nearly twenty myself. The audiobook’s narration was professionally done and there were no issues with the audio I can recall while listening. Being experienced with some of his other works, I know the issues I had with this book were not due to narration but instead were because of the writing itself. It is hard to hit a home-run when you are limited by the words you are given. I would have enjoyed more inflection or uniqueness in the character’s voices, but even doing this would not have overly enhanced the book.

In summary, if you are one who enjoys unnecessary and frequent use of vulgar language along with childish dialogue and characters having no depth, you may want to pick up this book and have a listen. I know I’m in the minority of reviewers, but with a congested genre, there are plenty of other books one can choose from that will scratch the RPG itch. I do not think I will be picking up the second book in the series.

Audiobook was purchased for review by ABR.

10/7/2020 Notes:

Glory to the Brave #3 just came out and it's been a while since I've read this series. I remember that I enjoyed books #1 & 2. Very happy to see that another book for the series has come out! It's been a while. This time around, I plan to read #1.5, reread #2 and dive into #3. The audio for #3 will be out tomorrow. =)

Overall story for #1 is still fun. Progression is a bit lumpy & it's hard to express in a story how quickly certain things happen in game. Depending on game mechs & play style, it's easy to level up quickly within a few hours & days of playing. I think it was hard for the author to balance showing how Ascend Online works by what the characters & NPCs are doing AND have the plot move forward at a good pace.

So, great narration and a good story with some flaws.

07/24/2017 Mini-Review:

Luke Daniels is the narrator for this book and he did a fantastic job! This was the first time that I listened to one of his works from the start to end. I'm not sure if there are many voice actors that could have pulled off the enacting so many characters like he did. He really added to the experience, and I'm happy to add him to my list of go-to narrators.

Ascend Online was an engaging LitRPG. Somewhere in the near future, the latest full immersion virtual reality game called Ascend Online hits the public. A group of friends watch the opening release and make a pack to join the game together.

A player is placed in a gaming pod and injected with nanites that become the interface to experience the game. The nanites and pod take care of every need while the user is logged into the game. As the story unravels, only an idea of how much the company controls comes to light and all of it is alarming.

The core group of players are well developed and have a lot of promise. There's a lot of thought given to the mechanics of the game and how it could develop. You can tell that the author did a lot of work to create a rich game world with a fair hand of history and current events. However, there is a distinct lack of information to the real world or why people would clamor to play this game that was released with very little information. The reason why is simple and not good enough by itself to float the whole concept.

The game world tries to be everything and nothing. Just about any race and role you could imagine is in it. It definitely comes off like a person's ultimate MMORPG. A fantasy given life in word if not in a playable game.

The whole story takes place in ten days. A lot happens. At times, I felt like there was too much going on, but events in a game can be like this story. That much could happen in just a few days.

Character development, story progression, giving life to the setting in game & out, and the game mechanics & history are not balanced by the author's desire to explore and experience the world he has created. The story would be stronger if it had a clear direction. I don't understand why Creativity and Destruction are in the story at all. Maybe that will clear up later in the series but I think there's enough going on with a mysterious game of open end play, a nebulous gaming corporation that holds a ton of power and gamers romping around in a new game. As it is, Lyrian's development is pretty broken and glowing 'super special' without any assistance from divine game entities.

Despite the flaws and obvious breaks in suspension of belief, I had fun listening to Luke Daniels roll out this tale and will keep an eye out for the series.

It was great

I really liked the way the book was written. Grammer was on point. Though the slave king speaking parts were harder to read witht the square things maybe just give it a different font next time. I loved the regualar character updates. I like the different povs maybe do some for his companions so we know there thoughts about the situation. All in all it was a a really well written book

This was my first legit experience in the LitRPG genre, and damn has Luke hooked me. A lively and fully realized world, memorable characters and progression, humor, and some really visceral moments.
The only thing I could have enjoyed more than reading this would be actually playing it. I love RPG games, but was very unsure how this whole LitRPG genre worked in comparison to an actual game... well, in Luke's case, it works really well. It was very easy to visualize everything as if I was in the game.
Character progression was great, giving a clear insight into stats and abilities. And I especially enjoyed the fact that the protagonist wasn't a jacked up powerhouse -- he has some great skills, but he's by far invincible, and develops more and more negative ailments along the story that will make his journey more difficult (those flaws and watching how he will deal with them is a joy).

I had a lot of things in my head I wanted to put in this review as I was reading, but I'd be sitting here all day. I'll just say I loved everything about this, and if you're a gamer (particularly an RPG fan)--video or tabletop--you should definitely check this one out.
:::::
Cover: Yongjae Choi's cover art is great, and when you read the story that scene makes a lot more sense... I don't really think it's a great piece for a cover though, especially not a first book. It's not very indicative of the LitRPG genre I don't think, and thus may deter some readers who are wanting that.
The design is clean and basic, does its job as being legible while scrolling through loads of covers, but other than that doesn't really do anything for me.
All that being said, I did pick up the book (and loved it). I just think it could be improved and possibly gain a larger readership.

Good listen. more please.

*** GIANT ASTERISK TO MY 5 STAR REWIEW ***

As with all LitRPG books, there is zero middle ground. If you enjoy the genre I genuinely feel you will share in my delight of this novel. But if the prospect of reading the details of level increases and stat point allocation after each and every action sequence sounds awful to you, you aren’t going to have a good time with this book.

This book made me want to play World of Warcraft again. I devoured this book like a big bowl o' popcorn. It was overall really well written, and super compelling. It made grinding for materials and professions sound almost glamorous! (Which as any MMORPG player can tell you... it's not.) I liked the main character and he seemed like someone I'd like to play with (even if he is a little crazy about being super OP with professions...) This was my first LITRPG read, and it's made me want to discover more of the genre. It also made me re-up my WoW subscription when I haven't played in about 5 years, so there's that... Ascend Online is pure escapism, and is basically the book version of a summer action blockbuster. If you hate movies that are all flash and cool action scenes without a whole lot of there there, this is not the book you're looking for. If you like to kick back with some popcorn and a soda and turn your brain off for some flashy fun, this is the book for you!

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Luke Daniels. Daniels did SUCH an amazing job narrating this book. He gave each character a distinct voice (though sometimes I was a little confused about what sort of accent he was going for...) The only downside to the audiobook is all the times the character stats and item stats are listed out and Daniels has to read them all out, where if you were reading the book you'd likely just skim over it.

This is the first book in the series but can be read as a stand-alone as it wraps up the major plotlines pretty well, with enough lead-in to give some hints about what might be coming in the next book. A warning: if you're looking to read the next book in the series, Legacy of the Fallen is really the next book about this group of adventurers. Audible lists Hell to Pay as book 2, but it's actually more 1.5 and a novella about a different group.

When I first picked up the book, I honestly thought I was going to have to deal with reading another translation of a genre that I have lately really gotten a ton of enjoyment out of. To my happy surprise, it seems the author is a fellow Canuck.

This means no translation delays nor weird idiomatic phrases.

I've read about 40 LitRPG's this past year, and I must say that this is one of the best ones so far. Well thought and consistent systems, a main character that while having an overpowered trait, still requires quite a bit of work as well as a having a lot of setbacks and negative stats.

Typos are almost non existent, which is always a plus.

My only problem is that I can't find anything else about the series, anywhere, and now can just wait. Truly an awesome story.

Oh, where to start. I was debating whether to give this book one or two stars. I went with two stars because the plot idea in the blurb is unique. Defend a village.

But the writing was so difficult to get through. There was more exposition and infodumping than necessary. The writer also treats us as if we don't know anything about gaming. Maybe he's doing this for the new readers who don't play games, but then again, are they likely to read LitRPG anyways?

This book could do with a line editor and a proofreader. For those who don't know, line editors check to make sure the right words are used to describe certain things. For example, on page 9, "muscle bound orcs" - there are multiple instances of incorrect word usage like this. There is at least one typo on every page. There are redundant words that don't need to be there. And there are extra commas or lack of commas in certain areas.

At one point the MC talks about how nobody would pass up extra hit points in his commentary about a certain class, but anyone who's ever played a game like World of Warcraft knows that sometimes health is not that important. Sometimes stamina or mp are more important than hit points depending on character class. There is also another moment in the first 10% of the book where the humans mention goblins having horses, which isn't realistic at all. Goblins are too short to use horses even if this is a fantasy game world.

I can live with some typos but the lack of line editing is why I took off one star. The other two stars are due to the writing style. It feels a bit slow, and the combat is redundant. Example: "My fist connected hard with the goblin's face" (page 30). Certain words like "hard" don't need to be there. There are so many instances of extra words throughout the book that it slows down the pacing and flow of my reading, and I can't become immersed in the world as I'm reading.

The age rating is also wrong. This book doesn't feel PG-13. I don't personally have a problem with authors deciding to use swearing in their books, but it definitely feels more like age 15 and up. The swearing and other situations in the book are more common than should be in a book targeted at thirteen year olds and older.

My final gripe is I just couldn't relate to the main character. He felt a bit flat.

Hope the author will write better in the future, because the plot idea is interesting, if not executed properly.

This is a LitRPG book. The main character is someone playing a video game at some point in the future where people can live the game rather than experience it with a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. We get to experience just how Awesome the main character is in this game. Everything he does he does well. Are there other characters in this story? Well, there are, but they do not really matter much. They are given a hint of a personality if they are given any at all. But they do not need a personality. They are there to bask in the true Awesomeness of the main character. They are also there so that the main character is a team player so the readers can see just how amazing a leader the main character is. Really, their names do not matter. What any support character says can be intermixed with the words of another character and I doubt most readers would really notice or care, because they all pale in comparison to the main character.

In fact the main character is so Awesome, that I do not think that is a strong enough word for him since it eludes to only "Some Awe". Really the main character is "Full of Awe". So I think a better word to describe him would be Awful! That is most definitely a more fitting word for the main character, and the book in general.

I admit I picked up this book primarily because of the narrator. I tend to listen to more books than I read and Luke Daniels has impressed me with his narration of other works. But even he could not save this book. This book did seem to test his range of character voices with the many expendable characters that kept appearing.

It did have a few good action scenes however that kept my interest going and unlike many other LitRPG I have listened to, all the women in the book are not either throwing themselves at the main character or plotting to kill the main character.

All in all, this Awful book failed to impress me enough for me to really get excited about reading further into the series.

Overall: +7

Really nice LitRPG read. Overall follows the standard tropes for the genre, but the worldbuilding and storytelling makes this a fun read.

Plot/Pace/Writing: +8

Plot doesn't deviate much from the standard themes for the genre. Players enter game, find it realistic, have adventures etc etc, but the way the story is told makes this very interesting. The author has a flow to his writing and it is immersive bringing the reader to the world. The worldbuilding is fascinating and the intrigue set in from get go. The plot unfolds organically as the protagonists are led into a series of every growing quests that open up the world smoothly and keeps readers interest up all through. Enough action sequences to amp up the adrenalin and doesn't get too bogged up in skillsheets and stat trees. A bit more on macro-world impact would have been nice.

My only gripe is that the quest notes actually summarize the events that we just read through which is unnecessarily redundant., but that's just a minor note.

Characters: +6

Again not much deviation. Protagonists are good guys through and through and stand for all the good things. Nothing in way of grimdark stuff. Evil guys are bad. Nothing much in way of shades in-between. Couple of instances where I predicted that author will kill off a character for impact, but didn't happen, which I always appreciate.

Stat levelling take precedence over character building which is a drawback, but does not necessarily feel forced. Though there is a big focus on main protagonist. I'd like to head more on supporting cast.

I enjoy grinding a game. I have spent uncountable hours cooking, harvesting wheat, killing cows and making leather, while playing games. I do not enjoy watching someone else grinding away at a game. I really don't enjoy reading about a third party grinding about in an imaginary game, the tons of boilerplate recounting statistics for items gained is mind numbing. There is enough action to be pleasing to some readers, but the glacial pace of plot development has me annoyed. I doubt I will read more from this author. Well edited and presented, I just do not like this storyline.

Not very interesting. RPG Lit must be hard to do right, because there have been a bunch of stinkers lately. This isn't awful. The behind the scenes story of "Creativity" versus her sister "Destruction" for control of the game world hint that there could be an interesting story arch to be had.

Drinking game key words:

"Spring in [his/her/our] step"

Poor writing.

Very low stakes.
Good story.
But great game.

Definitely satisfied with my first dive into the litRPG genre. Although it has its flaws, the style of it definitely appealed to me and I can certainly see myself not only finishing this particular series, but also trying out other books in this genre

🎁 The complete Ascend Online (3 book series) is FREE on Amazon today (3/23/2020)! 🎁

I picked up Ascend Online by Luke Chmilenko a while back when it was free on Kindle, but hadn’t tried reading it until recently, when I started getting an interest in the LitRPG / GameLit genre. I figured that, since I had it already, I might as well give it a shot.

I’m really glad I did. It was a lot of fun... the main character definitely falls into the more “heroic” category, and I never realized that town-building and crafting could be so entertaining. Sure, there are moments were it felt like the plot dragged a little bit (admittedly, the fact that I’m also a writer and I study writing techniques seems to mean I’m more likely to notice those moments), however, the awesome moments more than made up for it.

For me, some of my favorite moments are when he meets Amaranth for the first time. *Cough.*Technically, we had met Amaranth earlier, and I was intrigued then because I was curious to see how the author would take the “sentient” NPC aspect of the story, but the moment we meet Amaranth when he’s first been Aether-warped is great.*Cough.* The dynamics between Lyr and Amaranth was so much fun, and I loved the moments that ensued. Especially when a certain big cat decided to bring a dead goblin as a present for Lyr. One of my other favorite moments was when Lyr meets Graves for the first time, and there’s such a wonderful moment of rooting for Lyr and the seeing him being this heroic good guy. I mean, I enjoy well-written villains, but it was nice to see a character being so determined to protect the innocent village he just happened to spawn into.

Outside of character interactions, in which I enjoyed the various characters and their personalities (even though I did have a little bit of a hard time keeping track of which of his friends was which), I enjoyed the world of Ascend Online. I found the whole aether-warped aspect interesting and I’m really intrigued to see how it might develop further in later stories. I really enjoyed the climax dealing with the Slave King’s spirit, and the descriptions of the magic. I loved the humor. There were some great moments that had me chuckling. And I also was intrigued by some of the social questions that started getting asked... the idea of the game being streamed for money, and what happens when players enslave other players, or the idea that the game might be able to alter your perception... and what that might entail. I really hope that this gets covered in a little more depth in the next book, or at least touched on.

I think my main disappointment was that I was hoping to see the players interact in real life once they went through their forced log-out session, because I wanted to see how they reacted to real life versus having been in the game so long. I don’t know if that will be covered in the next book or not, but it was one of the things I was hoping to see that didn’t happen. And there was so much wonderful tension of wondering whether or not Lyr and his friends would be able to take on Graves before the forced log-out time. *Squee!*

Of course, I’m also curious as to more of the “behind-the-scenes” moments regarding a few of the other characters in the game Creativity and Destruction, as well as Graves. I have two theories as to who the women he spoke to at the end was, and I’m curious about what will happen there.

Overall, I felt this was a satisfying read. If you’re interested in LitRPG/GameLit, especially one with crafting and town-building, give this a try. It does have a bit more stats, which took me a little bit to get used to, but soon I was accustomed to them and looking forward to moments when I could piece together what was happening in part due to what the stats were listing. (For example, when I knew that one of the blows had been particular damaging or oddly low based on how much damage Lyr took). I absolutely loved it at the end when we get to see Lyr’s final character sheet for the end of the book. It reminded me so much of playing one of those games where you complete a level and then you see all of your stats and what you’ve achieved thus far. It brought such a happy moment of satisfaction.

So... yeah. Ascend Online is worth taking a look into if you’re considering diving into the genre, and I’m hoping to pick up the next book once I get through my current to-read pile.

This is a one or two star book made three stars (in the audio version) only by the masterful narration of Luke Daniels. This book had many of the elements of a well written novel but it lacked something critical: high stakes. This whole thing was just a silly video game. There were no real world consequences. Very minor spoiler: Even in the game, if someone dies, they just respawn in a nearby town! The characters acted like it was a big deal if someone died and they were all dramatic about it, but so what! Death is meaningless in this novel. Maybe passionate gamers or kids would care about this story but I didn't. I don't think I'll continue the series any time soon. I might try the author again though if we writes about real-world subjects.

While I like the idea of telling a story of an MMORPG, and seeing the progress of characters and the people playing in the game--this story fell very flat. The characters felt as shallow as their avatars, there were half-hearted attempts at giving them problem-solving analytical interests, but there were some very repetitive chapters, and I just couldn't get through more than a third of this book. There were small moments that were funny or interesting, but it didn't make up for the overall blandness of lists of video game inventories, and odd characterizations.
Of course I may not be the right demographic--but I am someone who reads, I enjoy playing some video games, I like problem-solving, and I enjoy adventure stories. I'm not a teenage boy, so maybe that's the problem.

Pretty good. Not the best LitRPG I've ever read, but not at all bad either. It was a bit more fantasy and a bit less LitRPG - mostly due to the seriousness with which all players took death (despite respawning) and possibly also because of how they treated NPC's and how rarely they referenced the "real world." I didn't mind, but it did stand out to me.