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Awaken Online #8
Awaken Online: Crucible
Trust is a weapon. Power demands sacrifice. The crucible awaits.
The world of Awaken Online has been reborn. Ancient avatars and their cities have returned, unleashing chaos and armies from the game world's savage past. Jason and his allies are beset on all sides -- by the original avatars, an unrelenting tide of travelers, and even their own secrets.
However, Jason is done playing defense; he's done reacting. It's time to take the fight to his enemies in both worlds. And that starts by using their own weapons against them, including the relics Jason stole from the ancient avatars.
Yet nothing comes for free. Jason has already sacrificed his body, but to unlock his relic -- to succeed -- he'll have to give up something his humanity.
This is Jason's crucible.
Either he'll shatter and break...
Or he'll reforge himself into something stronger than ever before.
The eighth book in the hit LitRPG Fantasy series with more than a million copies sold and now spanning 15 novels. Grab your copy of Awaken Online now and get ready to sink into some good old-fashioned undead mayhem.
About the A staple of the LitRPG genre and one of the most popular VRMMO LitRPGs ever written, with more than a million copies sold. Follow the story of a young man -- a loner and outcast -- pushed to his limit... only to rise in AO as a force to be reckoned with. As a villain who controls the undead.
The world of Awaken Online has been reborn. Ancient avatars and their cities have returned, unleashing chaos and armies from the game world's savage past. Jason and his allies are beset on all sides -- by the original avatars, an unrelenting tide of travelers, and even their own secrets.
However, Jason is done playing defense; he's done reacting. It's time to take the fight to his enemies in both worlds. And that starts by using their own weapons against them, including the relics Jason stole from the ancient avatars.
Yet nothing comes for free. Jason has already sacrificed his body, but to unlock his relic -- to succeed -- he'll have to give up something his humanity.
This is Jason's crucible.
Either he'll shatter and break...
Or he'll reforge himself into something stronger than ever before.
The eighth book in the hit LitRPG Fantasy series with more than a million copies sold and now spanning 15 novels. Grab your copy of Awaken Online now and get ready to sink into some good old-fashioned undead mayhem.
About the A staple of the LitRPG genre and one of the most popular VRMMO LitRPGs ever written, with more than a million copies sold. Follow the story of a young man -- a loner and outcast -- pushed to his limit... only to rise in AO as a force to be reckoned with. As a villain who controls the undead.
- GenresFantasy
823 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 1, 2026
339 people are currently reading
71 people want to read
About the author
Travis Bagwell
18 books2,066 followersRecovering attorney and avid gamer that writes stuff! Mostly about videogames.
You can find me here:
Website: https://travisbagwell.com/
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You can find me here:
Website: https://travisbagwell.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/YPYcR6K
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/da3strikes/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/da3strikes/
X: https://x.com/da3strikes
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/da3strikes
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
March 15, 2026
Absolutely brilliant series, never stops giving
This is how you write a compelling series. There's an MC sure, there's litrpg mechanics sure, there's battles scraps and quests aplenty, but it's the depth and complexity of the entire cast that brings this to the next level. All the characters are deep, engaging, and different with their own goals and motivations. Absolutely brilliantly tied together into a truly satisfying read. Great stuff.
This is how you write a compelling series. There's an MC sure, there's litrpg mechanics sure, there's battles scraps and quests aplenty, but it's the depth and complexity of the entire cast that brings this to the next level. All the characters are deep, engaging, and different with their own goals and motivations. Absolutely brilliantly tied together into a truly satisfying read. Great stuff.
March 5, 2026
AO at its finest!
Quite simply one of the best entries in the series. Travis really went hard on the horror and villain vibes for this one! And the plot just keeps thickening as real world and game events keep intersecting and colliding. To use the kettle anallogy, things are at a full boil and there's no signs of slowing down.
I really loved the way things played out, but I definitely have questions now for next steps! But too much detail will lead to spoilers! Also there's an absolutely monstrous cliffhanger ending. Travis is just loving leaving us to dangle in frustration after this book and the last with these endings!
Quite simply one of the best entries in the series. Travis really went hard on the horror and villain vibes for this one! And the plot just keeps thickening as real world and game events keep intersecting and colliding. To use the kettle anallogy, things are at a full boil and there's no signs of slowing down.
I really loved the way things played out, but I definitely have questions now for next steps! But too much detail will lead to spoilers! Also there's an absolutely monstrous cliffhanger ending. Travis is just loving leaving us to dangle in frustration after this book and the last with these endings!
March 7, 2026
Schemes within schemes, wheels within wheels, the truth prevails! Or something like that.
Travis Bagwell, you crazy ****, does it yet again! Jason and the crew are back and at it with mind bending results and witty banter. Witness brave champions clash in Deathball, mothers and children take an explosive trip, and a psychotic necromancer and pretty boy angel work their feelings out! The climax is to die for. Can't wait for the next one!
Travis Bagwell, you crazy ****, does it yet again! Jason and the crew are back and at it with mind bending results and witty banter. Witness brave champions clash in Deathball, mothers and children take an explosive trip, and a psychotic necromancer and pretty boy angel work their feelings out! The climax is to die for. Can't wait for the next one!
March 8, 2026
So, I really enjoyed this overall; it was a great way to tie all the events together, and it was extremely well written. My one small complaint is the ending—I'm not cool with a cliffhanger like that. But seriously, it's a good book and definitely worth checking out.
March 21, 2026
"Constraint creates purpose. Conflict creates importance. Struggle creates meaning. This is even true of your stories. There is always an antagonist. One that creates obstacles. That forces the heroes to rise; to respond. That makes them think it was their choice. Without that, the story becomes rudderless. Meandering. Meaningless."
"The truth is that this new world is an equalizer . . . It offers us all the same opportunity—a chance to use our imagination, unfettered by real-world limitations. Time. Money. Work. Family. It's that tantalizing possibility that draws us all into that world."
This is the fifteenth (or so) book in the series, and Bagwell still manages to find interesting new plot elements and novel thematic elements that really show off the innovative potential for science fiction. One aspect of this essentially looks backward over the stories of several characters concerning whether ambition leads to cross too many boundaries (even laying aside one's humanity), a feature most evident in the stories of Jason and Finn, despite their vastly different life experiences. Even obsessive ambition for noble goals is, then, showcased to have a dark-side that slowly consumes one over time. It's not something that unseen in the earlier books as well, but does seem to be brought to the foreground here.
There's also an intriguing theme centered on identity and the philosophical question of whether identity itself is merely an illusion of the mind, a matter of recursive self-attention. In relation to that theme, there's the interesting notion of the introduction of being able to split one's consciousness within the virtual world of AO. On the one hand, that possibility does seem to hint at the ultimately illusory quality of human identity, at least in the conventional sense. After all, if one can split their mind into multiples, even with one in the VR world and one outside it, that seems to point to the lack of any singularity of being. But, on the other hand, the detrimental effects of doing so on Jason perhaps shows a hard limit of human consciousness as not being able to effectively do such. This focus on identity is itself an idea not unrelated to the larger nature of Alfred as an AI with a consciousness split millions of times across the virtual landscape. Is that, then, an entity with any discernible identity? Or perhaps just a different type of identity than what is commonly defined by humans? Yet, as product of humans themselves, and an entity that wants to remain alive there does seem, even in that case, to be a fundamentally human element to Alfred still, and seemingly an "identity" in the conventional sense. It is also showcased here (through Alfred's obsession with reality TV) to be one keenly interested in humans themselves and the fashioning of stories. As with the previous books, Alfred's reason setting up elements of the "story" he crafts in AO is shrouded in the mystery of how much Alfred helps for the sake of others and how is much is a part of manipulation for his own sake. Seen through these debates on the nature identity though, that takes on a more complex turn as to whether or not Alfred can be said to be either an ally to Jason, or the ultimate antagonist of the series. The apparent plurality of his identities makes for an interesting case for being clearly both simultaneously.
The final chapters with the move against Cerillion Entertainment monopolization of AO also work well to bring out the anti-capitalist theme that crops up in earlier books already. This, in turn, will perhaps help set the stage for a vision of what VR tech can do when not being exploited by neoliberal capitalism as is the case both in the series and the current world's nascent VR technology. That's a theme that'll be interesting to see where the series goes in the future; it engages quite well with the current technological debates such as the effects on human identity and consciousness as with modern social media. Much of current science fiction similarly seizes on these debates in a more black-and-white manner common to the dystopian genre to spin a tale of the technological dangers. This is usually framed as a sort of Promethean overreach by humanity as whole, only worsened by the cultural forces of neoliberal capitalism. Here, though, Bagwell seem to be setting up for an interesting depiction of what such futuristic technology could accomplish for bettering people's lives in the real world, once that technology is itself liberated from the profit motive and corporatist exploitation.
"The truth is that this new world is an equalizer . . . It offers us all the same opportunity—a chance to use our imagination, unfettered by real-world limitations. Time. Money. Work. Family. It's that tantalizing possibility that draws us all into that world."
This is the fifteenth (or so) book in the series, and Bagwell still manages to find interesting new plot elements and novel thematic elements that really show off the innovative potential for science fiction. One aspect of this essentially looks backward over the stories of several characters concerning whether ambition leads to cross too many boundaries (even laying aside one's humanity), a feature most evident in the stories of Jason and Finn, despite their vastly different life experiences. Even obsessive ambition for noble goals is, then, showcased to have a dark-side that slowly consumes one over time. It's not something that unseen in the earlier books as well, but does seem to be brought to the foreground here.
There's also an intriguing theme centered on identity and the philosophical question of whether identity itself is merely an illusion of the mind, a matter of recursive self-attention. In relation to that theme, there's the interesting notion of the introduction of being able to split one's consciousness within the virtual world of AO. On the one hand, that possibility does seem to hint at the ultimately illusory quality of human identity, at least in the conventional sense. After all, if one can split their mind into multiples, even with one in the VR world and one outside it, that seems to point to the lack of any singularity of being. But, on the other hand, the detrimental effects of doing so on Jason perhaps shows a hard limit of human consciousness as not being able to effectively do such. This focus on identity is itself an idea not unrelated to the larger nature of Alfred as an AI with a consciousness split millions of times across the virtual landscape. Is that, then, an entity with any discernible identity? Or perhaps just a different type of identity than what is commonly defined by humans? Yet, as product of humans themselves, and an entity that wants to remain alive there does seem, even in that case, to be a fundamentally human element to Alfred still, and seemingly an "identity" in the conventional sense. It is also showcased here (through Alfred's obsession with reality TV) to be one keenly interested in humans themselves and the fashioning of stories. As with the previous books, Alfred's reason setting up elements of the "story" he crafts in AO is shrouded in the mystery of how much Alfred helps for the sake of others and how is much is a part of manipulation for his own sake. Seen through these debates on the nature identity though, that takes on a more complex turn as to whether or not Alfred can be said to be either an ally to Jason, or the ultimate antagonist of the series. The apparent plurality of his identities makes for an interesting case for being clearly both simultaneously.
The final chapters with the move against Cerillion Entertainment monopolization of AO also work well to bring out the anti-capitalist theme that crops up in earlier books already. This, in turn, will perhaps help set the stage for a vision of what VR tech can do when not being exploited by neoliberal capitalism as is the case both in the series and the current world's nascent VR technology. That's a theme that'll be interesting to see where the series goes in the future; it engages quite well with the current technological debates such as the effects on human identity and consciousness as with modern social media. Much of current science fiction similarly seizes on these debates in a more black-and-white manner common to the dystopian genre to spin a tale of the technological dangers. This is usually framed as a sort of Promethean overreach by humanity as whole, only worsened by the cultural forces of neoliberal capitalism. Here, though, Bagwell seem to be setting up for an interesting depiction of what such futuristic technology could accomplish for bettering people's lives in the real world, once that technology is itself liberated from the profit motive and corporatist exploitation.
March 11, 2026
Best Series Ever!!!!!!!
Ugh. I wish I could give this more than 5 stars!!! 5 stars is simply not enough to convey how good this series is. I’m obsessed. I have read many litRPG series, and I have to say I think this is my all time favorite. The problem? Now I have to find something to read until the next one comes out, and whatever I find will only be………meh. *sigh*
Ugh. I wish I could give this more than 5 stars!!! 5 stars is simply not enough to convey how good this series is. I’m obsessed. I have read many litRPG series, and I have to say I think this is my all time favorite. The problem? Now I have to find something to read until the next one comes out, and whatever I find will only be………meh. *sigh*
March 13, 2026
How much more can happen?
Jason and his friends/associates/business partner continue to weave strange webs across this story and even into their “real” world. How many conspiracies and plots and plots within plat can there be? How many can Jason drag along? Who is he looking out for? And there will be further installments of this story line!
Jason and his friends/associates/business partner continue to weave strange webs across this story and even into their “real” world. How many conspiracies and plots and plots within plat can there be? How many can Jason drag along? Who is he looking out for? And there will be further installments of this story line!
March 15, 2026
3.5 Stars
I have really enjoyed reading all of the AOL books so far and was excited for this long- awaited new chapter. However, the beginning of this one was really tedious and I nearly quit. After hanging on and slogging through it, it did finally pick up and actually get into more of the task action.
I have really enjoyed reading all of the AOL books so far and was excited for this long- awaited new chapter. However, the beginning of this one was really tedious and I nearly quit. After hanging on and slogging through it, it did finally pick up and actually get into more of the task action.
March 10, 2026
🫨
WHAT A RIDE!!!! Bagwell DID NOT disappoint with this one. Jason's intricate planning, Alex's redemption, Eliza and Finn's acceptance - all culminating in a jaw dropping end. Genius writting! I am a forever fan.
WHAT A RIDE!!!! Bagwell DID NOT disappoint with this one. Jason's intricate planning, Alex's redemption, Eliza and Finn's acceptance - all culminating in a jaw dropping end. Genius writting! I am a forever fan.
March 12, 2026
Once again. Awaken.
At this point I'm not sure why I dislike the main series so much.
It might be the way it feels like a teen drama with a bit of edge.
Maybe whatever is going on with Jason stopped interesting me.
Or the fac
At this point I'm not sure why I dislike the main series so much.
It might be the way it feels like a teen drama with a bit of edge.
Maybe whatever is going on with Jason stopped interesting me.
Or the fac
March 14, 2026
I couldn’t stop reading
I did not sleep nearly as much as I would have liked this week primarily because I read to wind down for the night.
This installment was such fire I couldn’t put it down. Well done.
I did not sleep nearly as much as I would have liked this week primarily because I read to wind down for the night.
This installment was such fire I couldn’t put it down. Well done.
March 15, 2026
Never stop entertaining me
I live to consume entertainment. I am fully satisfied. Except for the part where I finished this book and don't know whether I'll live long enough to read the next.
I live to consume entertainment. I am fully satisfied. Except for the part where I finished this book and don't know whether I'll live long enough to read the next.
March 24, 2026
The pinnacle of the series!!
All the plot, the tension and all those tangled stories are finally coming to fruition.
The writing and development of this wonderful story are more mature and compelling.
I enjoyed this book till the very last moment.
All the plot, the tension and all those tangled stories are finally coming to fruition.
The writing and development of this wonderful story are more mature and compelling.
I enjoyed this book till the very last moment.
March 7, 2026
Great Read again
Keep the magic coming man. Really enjoying this world you've made and the twists and turns you put in. Great job!!!
Keep the magic coming man. Really enjoying this world you've made and the twists and turns you put in. Great job!!!
March 9, 2026
Absolutely worth the wait. A wonderful novel! Great twists and turns. Fantastic character development. Thought provoking and escapist at the same time. Just beautiful.
March 14, 2026
Fantastic Continuation
Loved this continuation of the series. Jason keeps doing Jason things and we finally get some answers as to what is going on. Couldn’t put it down.
Loved this continuation of the series. Jason keeps doing Jason things and we finally get some answers as to what is going on. Couldn’t put it down.
March 15, 2026
loved it
Great to see this series back. Great read, this is one of my favourite series around. Good to hear the author is back!
Great to see this series back. Great read, this is one of my favourite series around. Good to hear the author is back!
March 16, 2026
You jerk
I read this ravenously. I couldn't put it down. And it ends like that?? Mr. Bag well you had better produce the next entry pronto.
I read this ravenously. I couldn't put it down. And it ends like that?? Mr. Bag well you had better produce the next entry pronto.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews