Awaken Online: Ember

Tarot, Book 1

By: Travis Bagwell

Narrated by: David Stifel

Finn Harris should have been the one to die.

But he wasn't - his wife took his place. What was worse, he only had himself and his company to blame. They let their passion outpace their prudence, determined to revolutionize the world. While all innovation comes with a price, he never imagined it would cost him Rachael.

Nearly a decade later, Finn is content to hole himself up and wait out the rest of his life - what little he has left. That is, until his daughter intervenes, forcing him out of his grief and into a new virtual reality game developed by his old employer. They're calling it Awaken Online, and she believes there's something unusual going on inside the game. And since Finn knows the company, knows their tactics - she might be right.

Finn wasn't sure what he expected to find when he logged in. But it certainly wasn't a manipulative fire god or a school for mages - where the students are pitted against each other in deadly duels and the faculty isn't shy about maiming or injuring novice mages to prove a point.

Now Finn must learn to fight, for his own life and a chance at redemption. He'll need to prove that his fire hasn't been snuffed out.

That there's still an ember burning...

©2019 Travis Bagwell (P)2019 Tantor

Great new story for the world

loved this book! the introduction of the new characters and storyline is great. I look forward to seeing how this gets integrated into the larger storyline.

Hooked!

Great storytelling at a very good pace. This one follows a different character which is a nice change of mind set and inner monologue. The way its composed is great as a self contained story, but also leads to a much larger story which I can’t wait to see unfold.

Another gripping story set in Awaken Online

Travis Bagwell has pretty consistently provided engaging stories with a great litrpg flavor. This newest entry follows a new character on their own journey and was enjoyable almost start to finish. My main criticism of this particular entry was this weird run near the middle of everything where the author took a paragraph or 2 to paint the main character, Finn, an older guy in a weird stereotyped conservative baby boomer brush. Going out of his way to talk about how little he values in game achievements and "participation trophies", and how hard work is the only thing that really matters. This came off pretty tonally dissonant, considering Finn was leveraging the AI research and work his company had funded to get a leg up over the other players he was competing against. I don't know if that was meant to be some weird throwaway to remind readers that he's an old dude, or if that was intended to endear him to the reader for some reason. That one part really threw me off, but the rest was very good, and I hope the author leaves that kind of dumb garbage behind in the remaining books in this set.

A separate storyline in the Awaken Online universe

A really enjoyable separate storyline in the Awaken Online universe. The protagonist is a fully realized character with a completely different demographic than the characters in the main AO thread. Nonetheless, he shares some of the same insecurities and foibles that we've seen in the other thread. I really enjoyed the disturbing new venue and there are players of intrigue and mystery to keep the reader engaged throughout the story up to and including the epilogue. I look forward to book two in this series.
The narration was okay. The narrator has a finite bag of tricks with characters in this book sounding just the same as different characters in the original thread. Female voices in particular require extra effort to maintain the suspension of disbelief. that being said the book is entirely listenable and the voices that are present are not a distraction from the storyline itself. Call that a backhanded compliment if you will.
My only real negative about the book itself is the unrealistic leveling of a new student at Hogwar, er, this school, vs the faculty. At one moment the faculty displays phenomenal powers and in the next moment they're challenged by the powers developed by novice-level characters over the span of a few weeks.

Great side story!

Surprisingly well written and interesting. Really good! I recommend to listen to this part aswell!