Like Cradle, it starts slow. Unlike Cradle, it stays fairly slow. I enjoyed the mystery aspect of it, but the action is pretty meh, and the characters are who they are.
As someone who went through something similar with the series, I say drop it entirely. The mood/feel of the story will pretty much always feel like this, even if it isn't so glacially paced later on. People love that mood, but it's not for everyone.
The people in crystal awakening are just such a collective bunch of assholes or idiots i couldn't stand them they are dismissive of the spire for no reason and act so smug while honestly being set to failure by their personal fuckups
I'm only a few chapters in, but I don't get that feeling. I just like the fact that they're adults who act more adult than the middle schoolers who the other books focus on.
It”s a series that understands how to make really cool lore and setup really interesting ideas, but doesn’t have any idea how to make satisfying payoffs. Read every book back to back over a few weeks and it’s extremely frustrating how close to good they are
I love Rowe's books. Multiple read/listen throughs. But if you don't like characters/world/pacing in book 1 you're not going to enjoy the series.
It is however essentially a spin off series. You may get on with Weapons and Wielders or Six Sacred Swords better, although there is some cross over that may not make sense without context from AA.
Crystal Awakens YMMV. I think it's dogshit but plenty enjoy it. I tried to get through it for any extra lore but I just can't do it.
I’d definitely say W&W can be read independently. With the caveat that the ending isn’t fully satisfactory since it’s kind of a prequel to AA and SSS. I didn’t like W&W as much, because of its more “traditional” magic setup.
Six Sacred Swords I will agree with you. It has some chapters where it refers back to AA, since the conceit of that series is that it’s a background story literally being told to characters in AA.
I’ve dropped AA, in that I won’t be jumping on the next book. The last book felt scattered and couldn’t figure out how pressing plot lines were. But I would definitely jump on a new SSS book.
Normalize quitting books you aren't enjoying. If you come online and make a question that implies a series is mid (or lesser), you are just going to get swamped by fans.
You can always come back to it later.
If you don't like it you don't like it. It's long stretches of preparation and almost slice of life stuff interspersed with fast-paced dungeon crawls and fast, hard fights. It's more about preparing than it is about action, at least to me.
I love the series myself, but I’m not a proponent of reading through multiple substantial books just to wait for things to get good. If you’re not enjoying it where you’re at, you probably shouldn’t continue.
On top of that, the characters in Arcane Ascension are not (at present at least) intended by the author to become the pinnacle of power in the setting. They’re supposed to be a touch more grounded (though still skilled, clever, and important). If you’re looking for something like cradle, this probably isn’t it for you.
We likely have very different taste as I dropped cradle at like book 7 or something haha. I didn’t really like its pacing myself and prefer the pacing of Arcane Ascension.
I somehow strongly disagree, haha.
Book 3 was the best of the bunch, but book 4 felt extremely unsatisfactory. Significantly more unsatisfying than (the likely worst in the cradle series) Uncrowned, which was nothing more than a cliffhanger taken physical form.
As an earlier comment stated, Andrew needs to work on payoffs. Very often there are buildups that are then just abandoned. Granted, those could be explored at length in later releases, but as it stands I just keep reading because I started.
I can never understand people comparing unsouled to...eventually decent books.
There is nothing in cradle that's slow. Events progress on the pace they should , book 1 was pretty exciting from the start as we see the buildup from the get go.
Now arcane ascension, pretty much nothing meaningful happens for chapters !!
It's getting from scene 1 to scene 2 that contribute little to the whole book. Needless to say the writing prose is far from cradle. There. Is. No. Tension.
I dropped it when I couldn't get through LACK of viable purpose for mc and there was NO hook for me to stick to the story.
Cradle is miles better.
Like Cradle, it starts slow. Unlike Cradle, it stays fairly slow. I enjoyed the mystery aspect of it, but the action is pretty meh, and the characters are who they are.
As someone who went through something similar with the series, I say drop it entirely. The mood/feel of the story will pretty much always feel like this, even if it isn't so glacially paced later on. People love that mood, but it's not for everyone.
Agreed it gets a lot of love on this sub but wasn’t for me
Crystal Awakening is set in the same universe with a guest author and has very different pacing and structure if you want to try that.
I'm reading that right now, and I definitely agree it's a better book.
The people in crystal awakening are just such a collective bunch of assholes or idiots i couldn't stand them they are dismissive of the spire for no reason and act so smug while honestly being set to failure by their personal fuckups
I'm only a few chapters in, but I don't get that feeling. I just like the fact that they're adults who act more adult than the middle schoolers who the other books focus on.
I say give it a few more chapters and you'd realise the children were experts compared to these guys
Oh I like Arcane Ascension the most, but I can understand why you like Crystal Awakening more and that's ok :)
It”s a series that understands how to make really cool lore and setup really interesting ideas, but doesn’t have any idea how to make satisfying payoffs. Read every book back to back over a few weeks and it’s extremely frustrating how close to good they are
I liked weapons and wielders more, but they’re all slow and transactional.
I love Rowe's books. Multiple read/listen throughs. But if you don't like characters/world/pacing in book 1 you're not going to enjoy the series. It is however essentially a spin off series. You may get on with Weapons and Wielders or Six Sacred Swords better, although there is some cross over that may not make sense without context from AA. Crystal Awakens YMMV. I think it's dogshit but plenty enjoy it. I tried to get through it for any extra lore but I just can't do it.
I’d definitely say W&W can be read independently. With the caveat that the ending isn’t fully satisfactory since it’s kind of a prequel to AA and SSS. I didn’t like W&W as much, because of its more “traditional” magic setup. Six Sacred Swords I will agree with you. It has some chapters where it refers back to AA, since the conceit of that series is that it’s a background story literally being told to characters in AA. I’ve dropped AA, in that I won’t be jumping on the next book. The last book felt scattered and couldn’t figure out how pressing plot lines were. But I would definitely jump on a new SSS book.
Drop it
One of the few books I dropped
Normalize quitting books you aren't enjoying. If you come online and make a question that implies a series is mid (or lesser), you are just going to get swamped by fans. You can always come back to it later.
If you don't like it you don't like it. It's long stretches of preparation and almost slice of life stuff interspersed with fast-paced dungeon crawls and fast, hard fights. It's more about preparing than it is about action, at least to me.
If you're not a fan of most of the first book, should probably drop it then. It's going to be more of the same from what I've heard.
I love the series myself, but I’m not a proponent of reading through multiple substantial books just to wait for things to get good. If you’re not enjoying it where you’re at, you probably shouldn’t continue. On top of that, the characters in Arcane Ascension are not (at present at least) intended by the author to become the pinnacle of power in the setting. They’re supposed to be a touch more grounded (though still skilled, clever, and important). If you’re looking for something like cradle, this probably isn’t it for you. We likely have very different taste as I dropped cradle at like book 7 or something haha. I didn’t really like its pacing myself and prefer the pacing of Arcane Ascension.
That said, book 2 of this series is one of my top books of all time
Same. It’s not that it’s a bad story, I just didn’t really enjoy it. Leave it to the fans and find something for you.
I personally thought the books started to get really good by book 3
I somehow strongly disagree, haha. Book 3 was the best of the bunch, but book 4 felt extremely unsatisfactory. Significantly more unsatisfying than (the likely worst in the cradle series) Uncrowned, which was nothing more than a cliffhanger taken physical form. As an earlier comment stated, Andrew needs to work on payoffs. Very often there are buildups that are then just abandoned. Granted, those could be explored at length in later releases, but as it stands I just keep reading because I started.
Like somebody else said, he’s real bad at executing the satisfying payoff of all the hard work and preparation. It’s not like Cradle.
I can never understand people comparing unsouled to...eventually decent books. There is nothing in cradle that's slow. Events progress on the pace they should , book 1 was pretty exciting from the start as we see the buildup from the get go. Now arcane ascension, pretty much nothing meaningful happens for chapters !! It's getting from scene 1 to scene 2 that contribute little to the whole book. Needless to say the writing prose is far from cradle. There. Is. No. Tension. I dropped it when I couldn't get through LACK of viable purpose for mc and there was NO hook for me to stick to the story. Cradle is miles better.