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  • Awaken Online: Catharsis

  • Written by: Travis Bagwell
  • Narrated by: David Stifel
  • Length: 16 hrs
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (235 ratings)

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Awaken Online: Catharsis cover art

Awaken Online: Catharsis

Written by: Travis Bagwell
Narrated by: David Stifel
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Publisher's Summary

Jason logs into Awaken Online fed-up with reality. He's in desperate need of an escape, and this game is his ticket to finally feeling the type of power and freedom that are so sorely lacking in his real life.

Awaken Online is a brand new virtual reality game that just hit the market, promising an unprecedented level of immersion. Yet Jason quickly finds himself pushed down a path he didn't expect. In this game, he isn't the hero. There are no damsels to save. There are no bad guys to vanquish.

In fact, he might just be the villain.

©2016 Travis Bagwell (P)2016 Travis Bagwell

What listeners say about Awaken Online: Catharsis

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing book, must check out for fantasy or rpg fans

Book, writing, and characters are amazing. Narrator comes across robotic at first but as the story goes on it becomes much more enjoyable and natural sounding. Hard to put down!

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

great book

really interesting to read a story about an MMO. quite interesting but end a bit more at teens then adult readers

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great books!

I'm just finishing the 10th book, already have 11th book downloaded and ready to go. One of the better books series in this genre. Really enjoy this author. Great work.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing start to the series!

I pondered a long time on getting this series, as I love any novel that dives into the depth of video games, VR and AR life, other worlds.

I am a huge fan of Sword Art Online and Ready Player One, and this was a great series with enough change that made me addicted to listening through it.

The way the author traveled back and forth between game and reality was a really nice touch each chapter, and how it took us from past to present in each scenario.

The reader was amazing. They did an amazing job with voices and creating an atmosphere that kept it exciting and series.

I would recommend to anyone looking to start a new series and has some video game knowledge with RPG's. I loved it so much I bought up the entire rest of the series today!

-DylanTheGamerDad

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating

I had real doubts about this story in the early chapters and I admit there are moments that really frustrated me. But for the most part, when I look back at some of those moments it felt appropriate for the characters. There was both real and virtual adversity. Triumphs and failures. Judgement, condemnation, and forgiveness. Noticeable development in the characters. It grabbed my attention and I've enjoyed this book and it story. I am very much looking forward to the next one.

I was pleasantly surprised by the setting and its development. Especially the characters. They had real strengths, weaknesses, motivations, goals, and development. I found it relatively easy to connect with characters and parts of their personalities. A weakness here would be the lack of characters and the sometimes large gaps between interactions. Hopefully moving forward there will be more social interactions with greater diversity.

Not to say the story or characters that were present were perfect. There were shallow moments and reasoning at times, but even these felt like a more realistic and human moment of shallowness. It has been a pleasant diversion from many other stories in this genre that enjoy a great dearth of satisfactory characters.

I will mention that as far as the "performance" of the recording is concerned, it was fine overall. But some of the pronunciation choices diverged from what I consider the more common used version (ex trebuchet). Other than that, some of the skill/stat readings sounded rushed with minor oddities and variation in pronunciation and clarity. It didn't really hurt anything, but I did notice it and remember it through the story... Hence the mention here.

Would recommend, i intend to start the next book immediately.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Slow start but worth hanging in

The start was slow and the narration at regular speed made it slower. That is fixed by speeding it up, but story itself was hard to grasp at first. Overall though once things picked up I was glad to have stuck it out

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Unplug your brain; plug into Awaken Online

I give it a 3.5 (rounded up). Awaken Online 1 is a fun, simple read. It's Ready Player One without all the 80s nostalgia, great for a younger, preteen to teen audience.

The Good:
A lot of these videogame focused books can be overwhelming with stat points, and mana and skill progression systems. (If you've read anything by Andrew Rowe, you know what I mean). This is pure, RPG style entertainment as Jason descends into a liberating darkness. It's face paced, and the jargon is kept to a minimal.

The Bad: (And why I can't rate it with a true 4*)
Oh man is this linear, which is fine for younger readers. The characters are rather flat, and the plot is predictable. I honestly didn't mind these traits, because it's just a fun, quick read.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Good story

Argh, loved the story, exploring 'evil' powers, but the pronounciation of trebuchet irked me, unreasonably so.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great book both I and my son enjoyed.

I’m always looking for books to meet my fourteen-year-old son interested in reading. About a third of the way through this one, I got the eBook for my son and he loved it. Good story. We’ve already finished the second book and are waiting for the next one to come out.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Sam
  • 2019-04-30

Excellent start, cant wait to continue

This book was excellent and a credit to the LitRPG genre. I will be snagging the next one in the series momentarily. The narrator and sound effects were great, though his female voices are lacking. The plot, characters, and worldbuilding were excellent though one of the characters was overpowered and made no mistakes. Overall excellent book.

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1 person found this helpful