Crystal Awakening

An Epic Fantasy Adventure

By: Andrew Rowe, Kayleigh Nicol

Narrated by: Travis Baldree, Emily Lawrence

A team of adventurers enters an epic trial of wits, magic, and monsters in this thrilling new fantasy series set within the Arcane Ascension universe.

Parties attempting to claim the treasures of the Tortoise Spire of Dalenos are usually composed of six professional climbers. But following a near-disastrous climb, Team Guiding Star Legacy finds itself two challengers short. With Nieve as the frontline fighter, Sage as the strategist, Lani as the healer, and Emiko as the spellcaster, they need a couple powerful allies to round out the squad.

The first new recruit, Hane, is a fighting and stealth specialist, while the second, Aldis, has quite the talent for teleportation magic. Though their individual reasons for scaling the spire vary—wealth, fame, favor—the team’s shared goal is thus: fight, win, ascend, and repeat. All in the hopes of one day making it to the top, where the goddess awaits to grant them the objects of their deepest desires.

To achieve this goal, they must master escalating levels of fire and ice, dangerous creatures, and confounding illusions. Whether facing a threat to their bodies, their magic, or their minds, each of the climbers accepts the risks. And bending the rules is part of the challenge. Some call this cheating; others call it winning.

But no test is ever straightforward. Because Guiding Star Legacy is being judged, and their next contest is one they aren’t meant to survive. Ascend or fall, the quest is only just beginning.

©2022 Andrew Rowe (P)2022 Podium Audio

Critic reviews

"Nicol’s fantasy novel offers a promising start to a new spinoff series, set in former role-playing game designer Rowe’s popular Arcane Ascension world...surprising elements and shocking twists [lead] to a harrowing final life-and-death battle and [set] up an intriguing premise for a continuing series....Fans of anime, RPGs, and the authors’ previous work will be eager to follow Guiding Star Legacy’s further adventures." —Kirkus Reviews

returning this book

the narration of this book is horrible, narrators themselves are good but they narrate every other chapter so there is no way to match a voice with a character and just confusing.

the team climbing the tower is just also not very interesting, childish, inorganic and immature is what comes to mind when listening to their conversations.

Just a bit too much wokeness

The storyline was good and the performance was wonderful! Unfortunately the unnecessary and unnatural inclusion of pronouns within the conversations was distracting along with the over-obvious comparison to trans-treatment. I feel the use of gambling as a character trait didn’t fit. Another book like this and think I’m gonna have to stop listening to Andrew Rowe books.

Refreshing, good growth within this universe

I've been a big fan of the other Kaldwyn novels, as well as the Broken Mirror trilogy. I found this new voice telling stories in this world to be refreshing and creative. I do have to say it was nice NOT hearing about so many things being split in twain.

While I don't have a problem with individuals that identify as nonbinary, the story when told from their perspective, was slightly arrhythmic. However, the exposure did make it a little easier over the course of the book.

Still looking forward to book 2 and see where this story goes.

Floor 20 is a bit harder than floors 1-5

It was awesome seeing the same world we’ve come to know and love but from a group of climbers perspectives. If you love Arcane ascension, you’ll like this. Wasn’t sure how I’d like having different point of views, and at times it was odd. But also, at times it made the story much more compelling than just Corin 24/7. Yeah, overall… citrine rank.

meh

idea was nice but it was a very slow burn of a book. good for world building