The Tower of Aetherius: A Progression Fantasy

Odyssey of the Ethereal, Book 1

By: Jamie Kojola

Narrated by: Diana Richardson

Length: 20 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

Waking up as one's video game avatar is no walk in the park—in fact, it's a harrowing tower climb—in this witty isekai for fans of geeky, badass women.

When Aesca Lampi wakes up in the form of her character from Eldest Fantasy Wars Online, she's annoyed by the historical inaccuracies. (Video-game-style scrolls? Really?) That is, until a building collapses on top of her, revealing she's on a fantastical island centered around the impossibly tall, glowing Tower of Aetherius . . . with an array of dangerous creatures—including jaguar hybrids, velociraptors, and giant, flesh-eating lizards—in the way. (Oh, joy.)

OK, so she's dead. Now what? In order to become a true Aetherian, Aesca is challenged by the god Aetherius himself to make her way through all one hundred levels of the tower and free the world from the tyranny of Oizys, Goddess of Misery. Aesca's mission seems relatively simple: solve the puzzles, forge alliances, regenerate when killed, move on. But soon she's involving herself in elf-human border negotiations and running from black vipers.

As the climb gets ever more harrowing and a host of deities begins to interfere, Aesca will need all her strength, cleverness, and wit—plus her trusty dragon-cat, Arkaziel—to ascend the levels and fight Oizys before it's too late. And she doesn't even have a help menu to assist her . . .

The first volume of the hit progression-fantasy series—with more than 750,000 views on Royal Road—now available on Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and Audible!

©2023 Theresa M. Paavola (P)2023 Podium Audio

Pretty Solid

Firstly, let me just express my EXTREME gratitude towards the author for not having any stupid status menus or readouts in this book at all. I never really understood that LitRPG trope since status menus are for people playing a game to see the status of their characters and not for the actual characters themselves to see. Anyway, let's get into the actual review.

I found the book to be interesting on the whole and I liked the wide variety of levels/floors/worlds that were in it. I also liked the general concept of the book and the main characters were both likeable and had good chemistry together. The book kept up a fast pace throughout, which was both good and bad. It kept things new and fresh and made sure that if the reader didn't happen to like a particular level, it was over pretty quickly, but also made all the characters that the MC meets seem paper thin. This was especially true of the love interest in the book, which weirdly gets developed mostly after the fact in a flashback for no reason. That was odd. Anyway, I just didn't feel any connection to any of the secondary characters at all. None.

Another issue I had with the book was the lack of good descriptions on what was going on in the scene. Since pretty much the entire book is about new locations and fighting, a lack of a good picture of what was happening just kind of cripples the book. The author has a good imagination, but hasn't really learned how to share it well, unfortunately. It isn't horribly done by any means, but it could have been a great book instead of just a good one with better imagery.

Overall, my recommendation is to give it a go. It's a pretty good time and mostly quite enjoyable. I will probably read the sequel to this when released, but I'm not super confident it will be any good. This book covers half a tower, and the author has set up the goal for MC to beat ten. There is no way the author has the ability to make so much more of the same soup into something tasty, so I'm skeptical where things will go from here.

fantastic start

This was a fantastic start to a new series. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a book in the isikai genre

Two Thumbs way Up!!

I was entertained, There is no Harem so thanks for that Author, I was a little worried with the lovers part that came up but it is safe and clean. Diana has a great Voice range and kinda reminded me of Andrea Parsneau and will look forward to more from this Narrator. The Story is Solid and Fast Moving. I mean it moves right along. Unlike other tower climbers this one has some serious Umpf!!! Need the next book asap please!

fun

fun book really liked the narrator the plot is solid. i love the idea of a cat dragon

power fantasy gone wrong

I can't finish this. Every time there's even slightly a struggle the mc is just too powerful right off the bat and its just over as soon as it gets interesting. I got fed up with the mc getting moony eyed and flirting with a sexy woman every chance the writer got. twice in the first third of the book. The most interesting part about the mc is that she's from Minnesota. Since the introverted gamer librarian personality she's supposed to have got thrown out the window instantly.

a mix of good fun and and inhuman crap

It starts with a fun fantasy, but is a bit boring in its loneliness. Then people and adventure show up and it gets much better. The story and interesting main character make me feel hopeful, then the author throws all resemblance of sanity away and characterizes the main character as someone who would promptly have sex with any interesting person they come across.

More and more of this made the story not merely boring, but so inhuman it was only fit to express the author's unrefined personal fantasies. I wrote this review at maybe one fourth to one third through because the plot was going nowhere and it was just irrational by play at this point.

Honestly I really liked this story, but I doubt the author has enough integrity to be worth following after this failed listening experience. If both the author and I are lucky, I will skip to reading later and it will all be good again, but it seems unlikely. You should be prepared for disappointment as far as I read, even you skeevy readers, because absolutely no details were given regarding the main character's immoral escapades.