I admit I was a bit irritated when I first learned that the author was taking a break from Jason's story to write a short spin off series for Awaken Online. Seeing that Awaken Online is my current LitRPG series of choice it was only a matter of time before I downloaded Ember, the first in the Awaken Online: Tarot series. How does it compare? It is both familiar and different in an intriguing way.

The story revolves around Finn Harris, a retired software programming genius who survived a horrific accident that left him in a wheelchair. Finn's wife died in that accident and he blames himself as he was the one who created the software that failed, causing the autonomous car they were riding in to crash. Locking himself away from the world, Finn's daughter intervenes, forcing him out of his grief and into a new virtual reality game called Awaken Online. She believes something unusual is going on in the game world and wants Finn's help to figure out what is is. Finn has no idea what to expect from the game but it certainly wasn't to be dropped into a school for mages where the students are pitted against each other in Battle Royale-style duels to keep from being expelled. What is going on here?

Fans of Awaken Online should enjoy this new branch to the series. Ember is Finn's origin story and introduction to the game world. It reminded me a lot of Catharsis in that Finn goes through a highly customized introduction where the game's AI picks up on Finn's emotional state and memories to help define what class his character will be. Also like the main series the game appears to be trying to help Finn work through his emotional issues and be a better person, though its methods feel questionable at times. The similarities end there as Finn is immediately dropped into a magic school that feels a lot more like a prison. Finn makes a friend along the way, who I hope gets some more page time in the future. Kyle is a great strategist and pays a high attention to detail. Finn's daughter, Julia, also plays a role in game. All three of them have highly complementary skills that could take them far. I also have to mention that Bagwell's sense of humor carries through to the quest updates which are snarky and hilarious.

I liked that the story focused mostly on the game world, providing a lot of depth to the magic system, and and helping Finn deal with his grief. Unlike the main series, there isn't much of a real world story thread. I could see that changing if Finn manages to work out what the AI is doing. Which brings me to the one thing I didn't like. Finn creates an AI assistant within the game world. That has a high probability of being unbalancing in the future.

I listened to the audio book narrated by David Stifel. He continues to do a good job.

While Finn's story is a 3 book arc, I'm already wondering how his inevitable meeting with Jason will go once the two stories merge in the main series. At least that's where I assume this is heading. Only time will tell. ( )

Very enjoyable read with some solid, self-aware characters. Story was a bit slow in places, but love the world and story. Good quarantine read. ( )

Ember being part of the same world as the rest of the awaken online series will probably be most interesting to the people already invested in the series, and should probably be compared to it.
This book is more of the same, except some important differences. Of course the author has had time to refine his writing, but the biggest change is characters. Due to the shift from a teenagers perspective to some old dude everything I hated is suddenly gone. No more cringey romance and no more teenage drama.
If you like awaken online, pick it up. If you want to get into it you could also give it a try, this new series works without knowledge of the original, or just didn't like the teenage parts of the original series, maybe this is a good chance to give the series a second try.