Here, there are certain sections, both of dialogue and narration where the writing felt clumsy, repetitive and unnecessary. In any self-pub book, the writing is always on of my causes for concern.

I really liked the treatment of Jason's storyline and how much of it is still mysterious. I am still not sure where he is going with it, but so far it does not seem to fall into the usual hackneyed AI tropes. I give specific praise to the author for his handling of the AI. At one point I was a bit worried because Claire and Robert's storyline seemed to be losing complexity, but then a lot of it was explained. The plot increases in complexity and weaves its way down a pretty curvy path. What distinguishes this book is its plot. The story follows Claire and Robert try to run and analyze the tests, and Jason actually playing the game in the present time. Jason also struggles with his relationship with his parents who are rather distant. The second storyline features Jason, a high school kid who feels like a fish out of water at his posh private school he attends through scholarships. Their storyline begins years before the game launch and proceeds to the present. One features Claire, an employee of the game company in charge of running a series of tests on the game via volunteers and Robert, one of the engineers in charge of the game. There are two principal storylines in the book. The book is set about 50 years in the future and the entire game is played in VR. It promises to be the most immersive and different type of MMO ever, and this is being ensured by its controlling AI Alfred. The basic thrust of the book is that a new MMO is being released called Awaken Online. ( )Ĭatharsis, Book 1 of the Awaken Online series is a self-published LitRPG novel by Travis Bagwell. So many strands are opened in this book, I can't wait to move onto the next in series.

I loved the game aspects, and all of the mysteries surrounding Alfred. I was on edge for the majority of the book, and could hardly put it down. I love the real world intrigue that is happening in the story, and how it mixes with the in game intrigue. I felt that it really opened up the readership that loved necromancy/dark fantasy, but not so into gaming.Īll of the characters were so well written, each unique and relatable. I loved the format Travis put the stats in, it made it easy to skim them, as I wasn't as into those parts of the book. I've only read a few other books with light game mechanics, and they were humorous so more poking fun instead of laying it all out there.

I had been putting it off because over all I was unsure about how I would like the litrpg elements. I wish I would have bumped this book up on my TBR list way sooner! I had no idea it was going to have necromancy elements, swoon.

Catharsis by Travis Bagwell