Imagineer's Bloodline

Ascendant Earth Chronicles, Book 1

By: J.J. Lorden

Narrated by: Travis Baldree

The nature of evolution is to move slowly.
Until it doesn’t.
If humanity approached an evolutionary crisis....
Would we know it?

Bendik is a once-in-a-millennia genius. He does. He recognizes quantum computing will be the catalyst. More, he knows there are only three potential outcomes for homo-sapiens: evolution, enslavement, or destruction.

Bendik has an idea that will trigger rapid evolution. His globe-spanning marvel of engineering will change how humanity lives.

Now, he only needs to train a couple hundred million people to use it without tipping off the powers that be. How does someone do that?

His son, Austin, unknowingly has a solution. An immersive game world indistinguishable from the real world, where playing can heal trauma and activate advanced, dormant DNA.

Bendik funds his idea, and planet Kuora is soon born. When Austin and friends start their beta test, Kuora captivates them. It can work.

Intentional evolution may save humanity. If so, the implications will ripple across an unseen universe.

©2021 Thisss... Much! Publishing (P)2021 Thisss... Much! Publishing

I can haz more?!

Good listening the story is captivating and the narrator was spot on as always. Multiple time lines, but relatable. Easy to follow along. I wanted just a bit more leadership from the MC, but was satisfied with what was given. game-lit lite with the barest hint of Wuxia.

I was totally engrossed, a page turner

I wasn't sure exactly what to expect when I purchased this title but was looking forward to finding out. Wow, I was blown away by the creativity of the story and how timely it is with many of today's technical advances. Great job by Lorden creating interesting characters spun into a fantastic story. Looking forward to the follow on book!

Amazing story and gripping right to the end!

I noticed the one negative posted review and couldn't disagree more - I had to voice my opinion. This book is a ride. Honestly, It’s been awhile since I’ve read something this entertaining. The book is packed with sci-fi and it explains things in a way where I almost expect things will go this way in real life. Even after the MC gets into the game world, sci-fi is sprinkled in, which made the whole thing feel that much more believable.
Also, I felt like each chapter got better and better. Not sure if the author intended to slow-roll his readers, but that’s how it unfolds.
The fight scenes are great; the writing is rich with visuals.
Erramir, Val, and Carson are really developed as separate people. Bendik’s part in the real world is definitely building toward something enormous. There’s a chapter on Mars and there's even an inspirational speech! Plus, Travis Baldree is a fantastic narrator. I can’t wait for book 2. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys sci-fi - a thoroughly enjoyable read!

I'm only about 4 hours in but...

I cannot even express my continued disbelief and how this shit is handled.

spoilers..





Instead of asking his son to hold off for a few days before going into his world. Or explaining anything at all. Or simply asking him to trust him. His father instead sets up some sort of elaborate magical accident were an invisible Man beat his son over the head with a pizza frying pan....

On top of that, guy sets up the world in some strange way, and gives his son and his friends better advanced tech to further his goals. And he decides to be super fucking mysterious and crazy about it, instead of being any type of rational whatsoever.

He knew for a fact that his son would figure out it was him, but still insisted on this crazy ass plan.

And I still can't get over the fact that he set up an elaborate magical accident to beat his son over the head with the Pizza Pan. it's utterly fucking crazy. There had to be a dozen different more sane ways to handle that.

Doing it that way almost got the world deleted because of his son's failsafe protocols that I don't think he knew about. I've been listening this book for 4 hours and most of that time my mouth was hanging open because I can't understand what the hell is happening or why and how these people are doing these insane things.

I'm still going to finish it I just, had to mention this shit. I'll come back and add my thoughts after I finish the book, but my God man. just because you have magical tech doesn't mean you have to use it for every single fucking problem. I dude in a black hoodie with a syringe could of done the same goddamn thing.

edit#1
Jesus 6 hours in and we still haven't even gotten into the have yet. He's a mist cloud and then it cuts away for like an hour. This crap is getting unbearable.

Just DO and stop TELLING.

edit#2
character creation took like an hour. but he finally got in the damn game. unfortunately, I still don't know what the hell is going on. this damn book is making me feel like an idiot. I've read like a hundred litrpgs. just when I thought it finally get to a part of a story where I can make sense of what's happening, he takes in the soul of some sentient leopard or something and gets his soul fucking shredded. when the genius that created an entire world is confused and doesn't know what's happening, my normal self definitely won't. then right after that it immediately has interlude chapter, that's 57 minutes by the way, about the past. this book is starting to seriously piss me off. I'm not sure even if I get the answer to these questions that I'm actually going to feel satisfied. cuz getting there was such a frustrating mess.

edit#3
God the pacing feels janky. You can never get into the story because the story keeps jumping around to different times and perspectives. Just when things finally started in the game and something interesting happens, your ripped away to listen to a speech made 20 years ago for almost an hour. only to then see a different perspective on the game, twice. Before finally getting back to the main character.

Well written with a good performance but...

Honestly, I'm not sure why some of these flashbacks were included. hmmm there is an extreme amount of build up to the actual litrpg portion with regular interruption from the "real world". Also what parent tracks down and gets involved in their child's romantic interests. Great job Travis on bringing out the series. I will definitely be recommending this and will try to follow the next books in the series.

I, definitely, did NOT want this book to end.

i, definitely, did not want this book to end. Can't wait for the next. The auther's weaving of wisdom throughout is worth the ticket alone.

Interesting but fell far short of the mark.

like another reviewer said the actions of the father made no sense. to choose to have your son whom you have a good relationship with physically assaulted just to buy yourself time to tamper with his project is stupid and doesn't add up with everything else the character does. That's not the biggest problem though. Out of a 15 hour audiobook there was maybe 5 hours of I ingame stuff. That's pretty bad for a litrpg title. Also the push of social and emotional health issues, and the game awarding people for being "true to themselves" was rather heavy handed and mostly bull. I love Travis' narrations so I gave this a full listen, but if it was a lesser narrator I wouldn't have made it past 25% of the book. I mean come on there were only two fights in the whole book!

sporadic as hell

I absolutely forced my way through this book. the idea behind this book is great. the execution is the worst. the story jumps all over the place, takes several hours before ever getting into the meat and potatoes of the story. Things are WAY over explained including the most minute details. several hours are absolutely wasted on filler and just rushes through the action. Dont waste your credit

I had great hopes for the story but ....

I had great hopes for the story, but it's as emotional as a teenage girl. Every character is always droning on about (their trauma) or non-perfect emotional state. Then you get into the world were basically there is no stakes, this is because there is a silent loving IA trying to make sure every experience the character goes through is ultimately for their own good. I don't know what the hook of this series is supposed to be. Also every single character will have you rolling your eyes with how Politically Correct they can be (did you just call my mom "babe" don't let it happen again) every single micro-aggression is checked by self important characters.

The main goal of the game is to turn it's players into good little NPC's and correct their bad thoughts and desires. The AI reminds me of a less interesting version of Mistro ( Savage wars).

Annoying Politically Correctness aside: The world is well contracted and the game mechanics are unique and interesting. The story however is really a kind of pedestrian, unexciting, and ultimately not interesting.

Seems to be a primer rather than a story.

First of all, Travis Baldree could narrate a cook book and I would more than likely listen to the entire thing. Excellent performance as always.

However, the ‘story’ itself was lacking in the fact that absolutely nothing was accomplished. The perspective switches around from every character introduced, there’s also flashbacks, and the real world vs virtual reality. One or two of these elements are fine and would have made for a good listen, but all of them together left it disjointed and incomplete. Concepts were mentioned, detailed, explained, and in some cases even had examples provided. A little frustrating when I got to the end of the book and the majority of what I had listened to was irrelevant within this story. Hence the title, it very much was an informational primer in order to prepare the listener to understand the motivations and concepts for the following books. If the next book is available on Kindle Unlimited and I have nothing else to read I will check it out.