• Awaken Online: Apathy (Side Quest)

  • By: Travis Bagwell
  • Narrated by: David Stifel
  • Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (3,399 ratings)

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Awaken Online: Apathy (Side Quest)  By  cover art

Awaken Online: Apathy (Side Quest)

By: Travis Bagwell
Narrated by: David Stifel
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Publisher's summary

A side quest adventure in the best-selling world of Awaken Online!

Eliza's parents are relentless - forcing her to constantly take extra courses to prepare for college and medical school. Sometimes, it feels like her entire life has already been planned out.

Which is why she leaps at the chance to escape into a new virtual reality game, Awaken Online. What she wasn't expecting was to encounter a capricious god and his loyal "pet". Or to be chosen as this god's "avatar" within the game and forced to tackle a series of asinine quests.

Yet she just can't shake the feeling that there is more to the irritating god than first meets the eye.

(This story is intended to be book 5 in the Awaken Online series. It should be listened to after Awaken Online: Evolution.)

©2018 Travis Bagwell (P)2018 Travis Bagwell

What listeners say about Awaken Online: Apathy (Side Quest)

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  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

More, Need More!

This story world is amazing. I think Travis Bagwell created a new environment where literally anything can happen and never ending stories can be told, even if they end up being a zillion side quests all happening during the same main storyline. I am super excited for more from this author.

David Stifel's reading of this series is also a lot of fun :-)

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

hippy god annoying

whiny girl annoying. climax weak and main character still doesnt grow in confidence. lame overall story about a lame character who commits horrible acts and whines the entire time she does it. it was hard to finish and i cannot recommend getting it.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Eliza’s backstory

Written to be listened to after book 3, this side quest is better positioned before listening to book 3. In this story, we take a deep dive into Eliza’s history and grow to love her much more as main character and learn what uniquely drives her.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Story slowing down, not a fan of the character

Here it comes, I am really getting bored with this series. Awaken Online is the title because I need three cups of coffee and a handful of no-doze to get through the latest books. Honestly. You want the truth, the best part of this book was that there was no chance of Alexion showing up, and he still had a mention. Eliza is just a more milquetoast version of Jason. She has his crappy parental relationship, and gets jerked around by an in-game god. The only difference is that Jason’s god is much cooler and much more tolerable. I absolutely hate every moment that the Hippie appears. I cannot stand Fluffy, and I think that every joke that they do or is done in their spirit falls flatter than a sheaf of rice paper. I just don’t see the appeal of the guy or the black sheep. His every appearance sends shivers down my spine.

The quests that he send Eliza on are neither funny nor very exciting. Honestly, at no point did I have a sense of danger or concern, nor even when she was killed. Yes, she does come up with an innovative way to kill the troll, but it was as exciting as watching someone spray a wasp with a can of Raid. Her solution for the Stag was slightly better, and she actually showed some life when she confronted the other players, but that went by the wayside as soon as she got back home. One moment of real growth and it was squished quickly. Seriously, she kills a ton of players but feel bad when she is given a quest to basically wipe out a band of pirates. It made no sense.

For some reason Bagwell has decided that it is much better to have an intellectual battle or solution rather than an actual fight. I don’t know about you but I like my intellectual battles fought in conjunction with a sword or spear. In his third book the most mind numbing scenes came when the team was doing the Hippy’s trials. This felt like a longer more drawn out version of those trials. I really don’t know why Bagwell is going this direction because in the first two books Jason not only out thought but he out fought his enemies. Here, it seems like Eliza is afraid to get her hands dirty. The only real moment where I saw a touch of Jason came when she confronted the PKers. There she duped and destroyed them. Then she went and became old Eliza again. That was the whole book, cry about how hard her life at home was, arguing with the hippy, doing an asinine Hippy quest, and then complaining about it afterwards. Wash, rinse, repeat. I don’t know if I’ve said this before, but I am not liking the direction this series is taking. Again, I will reiterate, this felt like a pilot episode for a spin-off within an established series. Chandler from Friends goes to visit his awkward cousin Eliza, we then spend some time with Eliza, Chandler pops back in to say good bye and next fall we have Eliza’s show, The Awkward Herbalist or the Anguished Alchemist, not sure about the title yet, but you get the idea. This is not a series that I will continue out of love. I’m sure I’ll get it just to keep up the reviews, but that is the only reason.

David Stifel stays true to form, and does his solid work as always. If you liked him in the other three books you won’t be disappointed here. He is probably the one saving grace that this book had, because if he hadn’t have been here to keep this story anchored it would have drifted far afield of where it should have been.

I know that there are a lot of Travis Bagwell fans out there, hell, I know authors who won’t even try to do a release near him, but I am growing to be less enthused about this series the longer it goes on. I’d like to see him stick to Jason’s exploits or create a character who doesn’t have trolls for parents and actually has a spine and a brain. They can be a little broken, but I need a break from the weak and obsequious characters that he pummels us with, and Eliza is the biggest offender.

I’m giving this book a rating of 7 stars. I feel that this is just a revisit from the last book that really didn’t need written. Thankfully it wasn’t a 22 hour novel because I would have had a hard time finishing it.

Even though I did receive a promo code for this review it in no way influenced my considerations of the material, and in fact, inspired me to be more honest. Getting a code generally makes me harsher as a reviewer as I am more often concerned what someone like Me will decide based on my review.

If this review helped, please press the YES below. Thank you immensely!!!

As seen on the LITRPG AUDIOBOOK PODCAST, please check it out on Youtube.com

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great side quest, read it after AO evolution

This is best if read after AO evolution but doesn’t have to be. Eliza is a sweet timid girl with overbearing parents who was introduced in the above book. She is escaping her life of constant pressure to study to go to med school as this is her parents dream and not hers. Once she finds the new and exciting world of AO her life becomes interesting and she begins to grow into the woman she wants to be... finally. This book will give you her back story and how she became the powerful water mage and much more by the end of AO Evolution. This book will fill you in up until she meets Jason in that fateful meeting in a bar. As usual the author somehow makes MMO RPG virtual reality gaming a suspenseful, fun, humorous and thrilling ride as Eliza navigates her way through the perils of AO while being pestered by an oblivious homeless hippie and his black sheep... who turn out to be much more as you will find in the previous book and this one. Great read by the narrator as always!! Worth the money/credit!!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

another great book

I always love Travis's books and have really come to enjoy these audio books as well. this is the first that I have listened to instead of reading first and I was not disappointed. my respect to both Mr. Barnwell and Mr. Stifle.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
  • cg
  • 08-06-18

Publisher's summary.

Two stars because the summary is misleading in implying this is a continuation of the main story after the new water city. "This was intended to be book 5 and should be listened to after Awaken Online Evolution."

That aside, Eliza is awesome and relatable for many listeners. Also, who couldn't love Fluffy? Her story is interesting but even for a ".5" story it wasn't very exciting or telling.

Will still definitely get the next part of the main story and am happy supporting the author. I just don't appreciate being mislead.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Missing the punch of Retribution

This wasn't a bad book, it provided good background, filled some interesting gaps and had great character interaction. However, it felt meandering and wasn't well paced. The entire series of events felt more like a series of events than a cohesive narrative. This is somewhat intentional, I think, because one of the character's main traits is to manipulate events in abstract ways, but it doesn't really click together. I'm glad I listened to it because of the context it provides to the main story, but in its own right it was a little weak.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

ELIZA is a badass!!!!

Totally love the new addition of original sins. She is a total badass and love her story arc. The story of how she became who she is before meeting up with Jason is really great.

Great writing as always by travis bagwell!!!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Bagwell is a continual joy to read!

Travis Bagwell is one of the few authors I feel a joy toward any book he writes. while a different genre, i am reminded of Jim Butcher regarding consistency and quality.

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