Towers of Heaven

A LitRPG Adventure, Book 3

By: Cameron Milan

Narrated by: Steve Campbell

Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's Summary

Jason caught up to the current floor in record time, gaining powerful allies and unique skills along the way. 

But an unexpected change in the tower took away his greatest advantage. 

From now on, he's as blind as the rest.

©2021 Cameron Milan (P)2021 Cameron Milan

story went in a different direction

The whole loner from the future with juicy secrets and foreknowledge that was developed in the 1st two books got thrown out the window. That was disappointing, because that was a BIG draw for me. I liked the aspect of leveraging future knowledge to come back in time to remake urself, but it feels like the author gave up on telling the story from that perspective.
I feel like in this 3rd book everything got dumbed down and/or simplified. MC is just another adventurer from the group of adventurers, and the tower itself got short-changed. Instead of new worlds for us to explore on every level as MC climbed to the top, all of a sudden there was only 1 more level. U only get to c like 2 new levels for the whole book.

Idk ...the book had all these elements that made it interesting and unique, n then it chose not to bother with them. Unfortunate, I saw a lot of potential before ...but now, not so much

Disappointing

Looking forward to Jason and gang climbing the tower, exploring new levels with unique properties? Too bad, none of that is going to happen now. Books 1 and 2 gave off the impression that this was going to be a long series. the readers were told that five years was the time limit Jason had to climb the tower and clear it before the monster hordes over ran the earth and that it going to be near impossible for Jason to do it in that time frame? Book 3 is like "hold my beer." Character arks and development take a back seat as we speed towards a conclusion that just leaves you annoyed. Important events that happened in the previous books are just kind of glossed over as trivial matters: wait Walter was cured when did that happen and isn't that a big deal for Roy? What happened to Wolf, seriously was that it? Isn't this a big deal for Olivia? What happened to Chezlov prominent character from second book? if he died it was so little of a footnote that i don't remember it.
Book 3 feels like a 5 hour movie edited down to just an hour and a half. The story and ideas are cool but for some reason there's just not enough time to explore or enjoy any of it.

Disappointing, but Still Entertaining

As a fan of the previous two books in this series, I fell in love with Jason, Roy, and (to a much lesser degree until this book) Olivia. While other characters were a part of their adventures and were a huge impact upon them, the novels were about their experiences and growing friendships as they conquered various and interesting floors of a tower that sounded like great video game experiences. I wanted to "play" Tower of Heaven and I wanted Jason (and especially Roy) as best friends.

While Book 3 is an entertaining book, it isn't anything like those. Instead of one agonizing final battle, the book becomes a series of difficult battles in dire conditions with unsatisfying losses and almost all of the battles are raid battles that shift the focus between several different international characters. That kind of huge raid boss would be great for a change of pace, but I wanted the tower to keep the focus on our hero's tight group and while they are all there, the focus is no longer on these relationships or on a tower that creates widely branching encounters that are not just combat.

Still, despite the fact that this book completely sacrificed the things that made it unique and interesting in a field of LitRPGs that are all about power and large-scale combat, it does deliver on those things well. If you're a fan of the series as anyone who gets to the third book in a series likely is than I believe you'll share my disappointment to see these unique and wonderful series traits become absent, but you'll still be entertained.

Heavily disappointed.

This book was so rushed it was annoying. All the major events that happened in the last book didn't matter in this one as if they never happened. So many things were introduced and not finished and the constant power spikes made no sense at all. Everyone goes from needing 50+ people to defeat a boss to being able to solo them in a matter of days even though the tower was supposedly increased in difficulty 2 times. Yes 2 times. And I hate how Jason is set up to be the "hero" why is it possible to be the best tank and also be superior to the strongest ascender as well things are literally given to him as if he earned them and skills just suddenly are learned that's a perfect counter to the next upcoming fight. And I hate how no one is addressing how childlike Roy is treating the tower like it's a video game when hundreds of their friends die. And why is Jason so surprised and speechless all the time for someone who supposedly has the mental age of a 100+ year old person and like 70 years of combat experience he acts like a brooding teenager half the book. This book was a major step back in quality for sure

I’m with the disappointed...

The first two books felt like a fantasy story with friends, family, world building, and dungeon diving that had an impact on their society and the world as a whole.

This…nope. This felt completely different. It wasn't warm and friendly. It wasn’t fun and adventurous. It was rushed, a poor ending with many things left to the imagination, and overall just subpar. The author clearly decided he was going to move on, whether that’s in life, or to other books he wants to write, and slung shot the story fast forward like the charactesr found magic meth that could fly them to the top of the tower to beat up God.

So many writer violations and the fans and supporters deserved more, or nothing at all. I will return this one for my credit back, but since the author’s heart and soul was used for the first two books, I won’t return those. 2-Stars on Audible means “It’s okay.” Before this book, I would’ve said “It’s Great,” and depending on this one, I may have chosen 5-Stars. Unfortunately, this book took too much away from the previous two. For me, it’s sad.

Holy hell

by far one of the best books I've listened to... can we get 3 more?

Absolutely Ripe with Telling over Showing

This is a near complete disappointment. I loved the idea behind this series, but the fact of the matter is that the writing quality just falls short.

Telling, not showing, is rife in this work. The author is a fan of explaining details to the aufience by breaking the fourth wall, and much of the mystery behind the tower is just banished without ceremony

Great series!💜

I really enjoyed this series. It was so much fun watching these characters grow stronger with each new ability. Together they learn more about themselves, their enemies and the tower. IMO this last book could have easily been written as books 3 & 4. I felt there was a lot more story to be told within this final book. That said the final battle was magnificent. I think there’s a hint that maybe a spin off could be a possibility, who knows?
The narration was absolutely brilliant. The characters, accents and evil laughter was fantastic. Steve Campbell blends everything together seamlessly so that your really listening to a movie. I can see every character & every battle as if I were watching it.
These are my first Cameron Milan books/series and I will definitely be looking for more.
What a creative & brilliant mind he has. Well done everyone!!
This is book 3 in this trilogy.
I highly recommend this book/series.

Sisters Spotlight 💜

Still a good book but feels rushed and different

So overall it is a good book as far as books go and it ends up the trilogy with this one.

However this book has almost no focus on Roy or Olivia. The book pulls a "sword art online" and the hero's end up jumping from floor 60 to the final floor. I think the author does this because he realized that he made Jason way to OP so he uses it to "re-balance" Jason. That and I think the author ran out of ideas on how to make the climbers more powerful, like he only had 1 idea left and so he fast forwarded it to the end. But for w/e reason that Jason needed to get nerfed.

In the end.... Nobody matters because Jason solos the final boss. Shen-long went from badass to worthless for no reason. Then, I also felt very unsatisfied with Olivia's back story, she cops out about her dad and decides she does care and all her back story gets finished with 3 min of dialog (some of her only dialog since she is almost never mentioned or talked to except for small 5 min parts every few hours). Roy does absolutely nothing heroic too and forgets that he has a 10 second invincibility shield from choosing the dragon and gets one punched by final boss and contributes nothing (he isn't dead but gets knocked out of the fight).

In the end I felt this was very rushed, and took a different direction than books 1 and 2 which focused on the team and their interactions where this book three focused on no real story.

And lastly Jason is a different person in this book, for some reason instead of all that resolve he had at the end of book two he becomes an emo until the last 4 chapters where he Deus ex Machina's back to what he was like in book one, confident and purposed.

So while overall a good book, it was not anywhere near the first two books.

Terrific story but too abrupt of an ending

Really enjoyed the world Milan created and the characters and concepts but wish we had a few more hundred pages to really unpack some of the characters. The other books delved into some of the background of the characters but this one felt really rushed. I know it was meant to show exponential growth of character ability but it felt like what was a long battle with lesser foes turned out to be super fast and rushed through some of the biggest foes in the tower. So I wish this had been drawn out more. But an awesome world and hope more books come from it!

Satisfying Ending

it's definitely a satisfying conclusion to the story. definitely work grabbing what seems like the final conclusion.

An enjoyable end well worth the price of admission

This is the final book in the series and like the previous books, book 3 provides a wonderful world of imagination and as this was the first series by Cameron I encountered, I now eagerly look forward to reading more by author.

This said it's not without flaws and I feel these can be put into two categories:
Missed opportunities and Power escalation.

Reading the first two books there is a vast world of imagination, it feels like a large amount of thought has gone into the different levels and therefore a large amount of opportunity for story telling. That the series is only three books is both a thing I am happy about and disappointed at. Many series including what I would consider some of the fantasy "Greats" stretch out for 10+ books, which often leads to either a feeling of exhaustion on continuing or ennui, so having a series neatly wrapped up is a pleasure to see. This said there definitely felt like there was room for expansion, some areas were fascinating but glanced over when they were sources of adventure, when they were instead a means to the authors desired destination. This left the landscape feeling rather flat and empty, despite there being a lot going on.
The outside world seems entirely forgotten. In the first two books the interaction between the two and the outside world is an extra source of tension, in particular considering political effects. This was a wonderful break from the frequent tendency in LitRPGs to forget the outside world or bypass it through total immersion (not a bad thing, but it was nice to have). This tension is entirely gone in this book and feels passed over.
As an odd entirely personal point. I would have loved the lessons from previous floors to have felt more like they were preparing the party for the later ones (at least with direct calls backs of "Peter reflected that had it not been for the 30th floor teach him X he could not have ever had managed Y.")
Finally more time could have been left for further character development outside of Jason.
It feels like 4-5 books may have been the sweet spot for this series. If I'm being honest I would love to see an animated tv series of it.

To discuss power escalation. While there was an obvious power creep in the first two books, the power levels sky rocketed in this book. Now this is a matter that's purely personal taste, but for me it made matters harder to follow. It detracted from the efforts of the many to overcome obstacles using teamwork and tactics, to a few key characters and everyone else mostly feeling like fodder or support. I also feel it detracts a bit from the struggle as it becomes more fanciful and harder to follow.

Pros:
Assuming you have read the previous books the pro's will be familiar.
Cameron has created this beautiful world of opportunity, the dizzying differences between levels and amount of thought that has gone into this tale is extraordinary.
The story is highly engrossing and exciting, and I have swiftly devoured it wanting to know what happened next.
Eros is excellent
There is a wonderful world of mystery going in the background, which is slowly unveiled. Once again this comes down to excellent planning by the author who evidentially knew the story they wanted to tell, rather than just wanting stuff to just be mysterious.
Tournaments! (This may have been book 2, but I've gone through all of these books so quickly) May sound like a weird thing but I enjoy tournaments in fantasy books and the variety of the challenges makes it really interesting.

Narration:
I think Steve nailed it. His voice is naturally engrossing and really adds to the feel of the story, particularly at matters of excitement. Were I to have one criticism it would be that when narrating characters, I would like to hear a greater range/intensity of emotion, there were a couple of moments where it felt slightly flat. This said I've given it 5* for a reason, as he really pulls you in and provides a visceral effect to elements of the story.

Overall:
I've really enjoyed this book and while I did have a couple issues, I still felt like it was an excellent read and a delightful finale to the series. Everyone involved in this production should be proud and I've already recommended it to several people, so good job all.

I enjoy this and hope there’s more

The series was good but I felt needed another Boole or maybe as it’s my first time with this author they have continued in a sequel
Series.

Loved it

From start to finish awesome. Characters are so likeable and relatable, Roy give me goku vibes and the story just gets me in the mood for world of warcraft.

Just listened to all 3.

I thoroughly enjoyed this series. They are fun and easy to listen to. Recommend

A good series

Have now listen to them all. I think absoluty you should give this series a chance. Enjoyed it.

Amazing Books

Says it all really. I want a book 4 though. I will wait full of Anticipation to see Jason blitz the cultivation universe.

conclusion

Great conclusion to the story and a lot of fun to listen to. would love to find out what happens after but that's always the case when the world building is good.

VA was great and gave more life to the characters.hard to do better for a single person so could t ask for more

Great Conclusion

This is a great conclusion to the series. It didn't feel rushed and the loose threads were tied together. Since finishing it a couple of days ago, I've found myself thinking about the future of the characters.

Great series

Love this series and I highly recommend all to listen to it! The MC and his companions are total badasses, the world setting is unique and diverse and the battles on the final stage are amazing! Majority of the battle scenes are very well written CM creates very vivid scenes and it feels as if I'm watching it on the tv!!

However on a sad note this book was (for me) the weakest of all three. I feel as if lots of elements are brushed under the rug or fade away without word or reason. In some cases characters even dissappear completely.

I really enjoyed Jasons (MC) journey and his progression throughout the book and would love to see what CM has installed for us in the future.

A big congratulations to the narrator SC you did a fabulous job.