Ascend Online

Ascend Online, Book 1

By: Luke Chmilenko

Narrated by: Luke Daniels

Length: 17 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

Diving into a revolutionary new video game, Marcus and his friends escape a stagnant society, entering into a world that defies their wildest imaginations. But from the moment that he logs in, Marcus finds himself separated from his friends and thrown into a remote village under attack by a horde of goblins.

Forced into battle, Marcus rallies the beleaguered villagers and, with their help, manages to drive off the invading creatures. With the village in ruins and their supplies spoiled, the survivors desperately turn to Marcus for help in rebuilding the village.

Realizing that this game is nothing like he's ever played before, Marcus is swept up into a whirlwind of adventure as he struggles to defend his new home, quickly finding that marauding goblins are the least of his problems.

©2016 Luke Chmilenko (P)2017 Podium Publishing

Excellent LitRPG!

I won't go into the details of the Book, but as someone who has almost 24 months of logged listening time on Audible, this book not only has excellent content by Luke Daniels (who is a fantastic narrator) but it also has the hours to create the background and build the story.. it is a great listen. if your like me and you look to reviews before spending the credit then trust me, this is a worth while listen.
I was not given this book for free, I purchased it, and I did not have to write this review. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Luke Daniels and a great LITRPG; enough said

There are many LITRPG stories coming out seemingly every day, some good some not so good, “Ascend Online,” narrated by Luke Daniels is a great entertaining experience. My personal favorite in this genre has been “The way of the Shaman,” series and I rate the first book in this new series just as high, maybe even higher given the narrator. I hope the next book is just as good; can’t wait.

Super fun!

Really enjoyed this. Took a while to get used to hearing some of the stats of the game, but not too bad. Fun story. Looking forward to the others In the series.

Great listen

This was a fun listen. Interesting and a total D&D type fantasy that would be a great run.

Really good LITRPG series

I found the story pretty compelling overall. The characters are engaging and fun to read about.The framework for which the author uses to explain the "game" interface (as per the LIT RPG style) works better here than most other storylines I've read so far, and does not require a huge suspension of belief in it's explanation- it's actually reasonable and well thought out, and adds to the story instead of distracting from it. There is a fair bit of humor written into the story, and yet the people involved are very interesting- you get invested in wanting to see them succeed.
Luke Daniels puts on an excellent performance, though the way he performs some of the characters are borrowed from some other books he's performed, so you might start to interpolate some of the other character's personalities onto his reading here (Constantine, for example, is a dead ringer for Standish from "The Ember Wars"). Still, Luke Daniels does an incredible job of bringing a wide range of personalities to the characters and really selling a lot of the humor with his timing and performance.
I really don't have any criticisms for this series- I've read all 3 books now and don't regret purchasing any of them. They are my favorite LIT RPG books so far along with "The Land", and I look forward to more from this author. If you enjoy reading LIT RPG in general, this would be a good series to pick up.

Well, I have a new series to read...

The premise of the book was interesting, the story solid and fun. Luke Daniels is great as always. I'm greatly looking forward to the next book in the series, and hope it's just as good if not better than the first.

so good!

litRPG is my favorite new genre and this is a shining example of the potential it possesses

What an amazing concept!

I was blown away by the collision of Science Fiction and Fantasty. The characters were deep and memorable and the story had an amazing concept and pacing. I listened at one point for 8 hours straight constantly wondering what was coming next. Great book, colorful language that felt down to earth rather pretentious. Wouldn't change a thing! Can't wait for the sequel!

awesome story very addicting

I could not stop listening, great story and good narration, cant wait for book 2.

epic listen!

definitely one of the most fun books I listened to. the reader wasn't boring to listen to and the story was super fun and made me want to go jump into an rpg through the whole thing!