Awaken Online: Dominion

By: Travis Bagwell

Narrated by: David Stifel

Length: 27 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's Summary

Following Jason's evolution into a Keeper, he finds his fledgling city once again in turmoil. A new and deadly enemy threatens the Twilight Throne - one that has no difficulty contending with Jason and the members of Original Sin.

Jason must work quickly to consolidate his city's power. That means securing the villages within the Twilight Throne's influence, finding a steady stream of income, and growing the city's military strength. Even as the group grapples with these changes, they notice that something is stirring up the native undead around the city, although the source of this strange influence is uncertain.

One thing is clear, however. Jason might have evolved, but his enemies have adapted with him. If the Twilight Throne is to survive, the group must grow stronger, and Jason must learn to control his newfound abilities.

Otherwise, the darkness may very well claim them all.

©2019 Travis Bagwell (P)2019 Travis Bagwell

I don't know how I'm going to rate this quite yet.

I just started this. The rating above isn't my final rating yet. The fight with Thorn or Thorne.. Whatever. Seriously? Let's just make the main character pointless right off the bat. Good choice man. sigh. I'll finish this when I'm done and maybe I'll have a better over view. Just saying it really should have happened outside the view of his people. I know I would have walked out and not looked back had I been a player watching in the street. Ridiculous. okay. I've gotten further. It's getting better and I suspect I'll up the review stars by the end. One thing I don't like about this series is the narrator. He's not bad at all. He is a good narrator. He really is. He just doesn't match this story at all. He sounds like an older man. Mid 60s at least. Doesn't match a post high school student at all. Not even a little. He is good just way too old sounding for the characters involved. I know I'm complaining too much. It is getting better and it is well written. It's worth the buy. I just wish the first thing I mentioned above had happened differently. Don't read any further if you don't want spoilers. My opinion turned against this book by the end. Against the series. So the pacing. The pacing of this book is garbage. A bad guy is doing his thing you leave a small bit of hope to cling to. Even if its tiny. He didn't do this. When its finally over you're just irritated because there was no hope. Then when you get the payoff it's just cheap. Then when he finally pays it off with a thing that is a world event piece and you finally feel like all the bullcrap was finally worth it he takes it away. Its just bull man. I think I'm done with this series. This book just made me really mad. The pacing drove me crazy. I don't know. I won't lower my rating because I don't want my subjective opinion to sway someone else the wrong way. Other people may like the pacing. idk. I'm done typing.

Author is an idiot.

Can't even bother to remember his own rules. Every character is just a reaction gif for how "evil" the main character is. Tries way too hard to make his own madeup brain science the premise for every major problem facing the MC. This series had promise but the author is just too incompetent to make it worth continuing. I'll be refunding every book.

Amazing book turned drama

This series is slowly turning into a romcom drama... like it better when it was about Jason not riley and how she contradicts her self and cries about Jason poking in her past yet does it to Jason... this book is going down hill... make it about Jason again and his independence not a teenager who is in love with a girl who betrayed him lied to him and called him worse then Alex.... this book is a romantic drama joke

Stressfully depressing...

That’s the best way I can describe this latest installment of AO. Bagwell abandons the main things I enjoyed about this series and wholeheartedly embraces the things that most put me off about it. The thing I have liked most throughout this series is the sense of adventure and character development/progress that the author has woven through both worlds. The thing that makes you really feel like you’re taking a walk through another world and that anything might happen around the next corner. The aspect that has threatened to put me off of this series throughout every book has been the overwrought hand-wringing and overdone, moral indecision that Bagwell beats away on like highest hippie in the drum circle... I don’t mind this aspect when it’s woven into the story subtly enough that you don’t want to just slap the character/author and start looking through your wishlist for another book on Audible. Unfortunately, in spite of this book being 20+ hours long it feels like most of it is filled with a bunch of YA moaning a la... “Should I do the thing thing that I know I’m going to end up doing no matter what?” and, “Even though I had no choice or wasn’t even the one responsible for the situation, I just have to obsess over and over about how guilty I feel about the thing that I in fact was not responsible for but for which I irrationally insist on taking responsibility!” and on and on. There is very little adventure here. Everything is unnecessarily drawn out and picked over until you just feel like you’re on edge and stressing along with the characters, but you don’t actually care about the outcome... for about 19 out of the 20 hours. Also, the bouncing from character to character device doesn’t have the same impact of dropping in big plot turns and “oh sh!t!, no he didn’t” information reveals. In spite of there being a big question about the nature of the world running through the whole installment, this book lacks the advancement of our knowledge of the world and the deeper facets of the workings of both the AI in the real world and the gods/power players in the online one. In fact I feel like this whole book could have been condensed down to one of the x.5 side novellas and still have been a bit short on plot/character advancement. That said, the book is (as always) well written and well edited. The narrator does the same fairly good job he’s done all along. However, I find the quirks of his own personal accent endlessly annoying and frequently jarring, but they’re no more or less present than in the rest of the series. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about here then just pay attention to how he pronounces the word “popcorn” throughout these books and try to tell me that it doesn’t bother you too). In the end, I just hope this is a temporary dip in Bagwell’s otherwise engrossing and imaginative story telling, and that the next books get back on track with the immersive and exciting adventures and character development.

inconsistent characters

Jason is so inconsistent it's infuriating. He's a genius when the plot calls for it but 90% of the time he's an unbearable idiot. I'm not referring to the dense romance part, I don't even need to comment about that. I'm talking about the entirety of the book.

Real world drama

I enjoyed this, but the main story is less in AO than the others. The focus seems on the real world with AO a secondary story. The author works to balance this, so it is still a good book, but I’m reading for the in-game bits. I have enough real world angst without bonus angst from a book. I recommend continuing the series but hope the next isn’t so focused on the challenges outside the game. The teenage boy perspective begins to be one of those characters where the reader keeps thinking, duh, why would he do that? Overall a good book, but not as good as even the side quest books.

becoming repetitive

the story is still a good one and I enjoy it, but it almost seems as if the story is being stretched for the sake of stretching it and a lot of repetitive details and info are popping up.

No akward teen romance, please.

I am frustrated that so many romantic encounterfs are based on the same priciples made famous from Japanese manga or the twilight series. Akward is not a permanent state between girls and boys that like eachother. Yes, exposing yourself to hurt is scary. However if the Author's or Readers of this have more fear/problems of admitting to liking someone than hands-down torture, please seek help. Made me skip entire chapters to avoid listening to 5 minutes of two people struggeling to make eyecontact.

Better & Better

It's amazing how this series manages to be exciting and thrilling. I have caught myself wondering how long I have been listening due to being sucked into the story. Just Awesome!

solid storyline

The story like is good and has solid attempts to lure the reader forward. Overall it is an enjoyable story with likeable characters. Few areas that seemed rushed and could have more depth but still is very entertaining.

keeps getting better

travis and David deliver in the next part of the story. looking forward to the next part!

Continued listening

There's a lot to unpick in this one. The Jason/Riley teenage heart-throb failure to communicate arc was incredibly tiresome. Yes, he's a teenaged boy without much of a clue, but rehashing this tired cliche added nothing to the overall progression of the story. The court case is a nice addition however Delores Umbridge, sorry I mean, Gloria Ogawa is a cardboard cutout pantomine villain. The arrival of Thorn and his homeboys was necessary but serves to highlight the problem LitRPG has - main characters become overpowered really fast, and ever increasingly badass antagonists are required to provide any level of danger. *ding ding ding ding ding ding* Jason had just gained another 14 levels. Are we in a hurry? Finally, David Stifel is a poor narrator. Yes, this is subjective, but his accents are awful, his pace of speech is incredibly slow and his tone of voice grates. No change to the other books, and nothing against Mr Stifel personally, but he's the main reason I stopped listening to another book series. Now the good news. This was a solid continuation of the adventure, and Travis Bagwell clearly has plenty of story to tell. This is most excellent. A little less shark-jumping and riding on the back of cliches and this would be most splendid. As it is, it is only "really good".

awesome as usual

loved it just like the rest, although Jason and Riley was so infuriating at the beginning.

yeah no !!!

the writer has gone a bit over board with the story no more clever plot twists no more upgrade like action.

Brilliant

the hole serise is amazing, the depth, the story line, the multitude of events going on, both in the game world and real life. the characters are great, the banter between them, the quirks, the humour. it's by far one of the best litrpg book serise out there

Wow

ok so another bloody good book and story these books have yet to disappoint me in anyway other than ending to soon.

Just gets better with each book

Really enjoying this series and looking forward to the next part. I think I see where this is heading and it will be interesting to see if I am totally wrong. David gave excellent narration as usual and at no point in the book did i get bored

A great new book to the series 👍

i loved the other books Soo much could not wait for this release and it did not disappoint!! the performance was superb! the story carried on nicely saw some of the characters finally start to open up to each other! only down side to this book was I felt like the characters have gone super whiny. and the audio felt a little messy at some points nothing that ruined it though all and all I would recommend this book to anyone!

a downward turn

ultimately, while still good a good listen, set in an interesting world, this book threw so many challenges against impossible odds, while the "bad" characters were free to wander around with no such challenges of their own and act as they pleased, it came across as too unbalanced - Its not that the main character had so many challenges, but the others did not, ...that Jason and co should fight so hard, for so little, while the Alex side do what they like and get it all. That and taking a great character with an interesting build and a focus on innovative use and tactical planning, and changing them to a lame melee character was less interesting to listen to, and reminds us all who have played MMOs what a gimped character class that would be. i found myself thinking, along the way that i'd have just quit that game