The Bookwyrm's Review of Towers of Heaven (Book 1) by Cameron Milan

 

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Rating: 9/10 Stars

Review

One day, six towers appear on Earth. Each one stands hundreds of stories tall, and are invulnerable to all attacks. At the base of each tower is a portal, welcoming in all who dare enter it.

All sorts of magical monsters can be found inside the towers. Even treasure, magic and superhuman strength can be acquired. The problem is that the towers aren't a friendly place. Even worse, the towers sometimes release waves of monsters to attack Earth.

In the year 2083, there are only a hundred survivors. In one last attempt, they challenge the final floor without regard for their lives. By some miracle, they manage to beat the floor at the cost of their lives, leaving only one survivor.

As a reward for clearing the tower, he is granted one wish. He decides to go back in time to before the towers arrived. His goal is simple: prevent humanity from being wiped out.

Synopsis

LitRPG tends to get a bunch of different kinds of stories lumped into it as a genre. Everything from people stuck in a game world, a fantasy world that happens to have leveling or a real world with a stat system overlay all fall under the umbrella of LitRPG. Towers of Heaven falls under that last category, and the world building is centered around it. When the six towers appeared on earth, people going in were given the ability to level themselves up, even being able to change species at a certain point. No two level ups were exactly the same, as players choices come into play, and as people climbed the towers, they discovered whole new worlds within. They also discover whole new dangers, as waves of monsters issue forth from the Towers, easy to defeat at first, but after a certain point, not so much. The term post apocalyptic gets thrown around a lot, but when you're down to the last 100 survivors on the planet, you earn the label. The early swerves on various LitRPG and fantasy tropes were really interesting, and set the table for how the story progresses after Jason, the main character, is granted his wish, if not how he expected it, with consequences for humanity as a whole.

I did really enjoy getting to know the main character, Jason. Meeting him at the end of the world boss fight, he's not one of the uber-powerful players, having a power that makes him a great tank, but not casting nuclear fireballs. When a fluke lets him cast the wish, he does what he can to try and save everybody. When it goes partially wrong, well, he just rolls with it like any tank and puts his experience to best use to try and cheat the system in humanity's favor. Anything with time travel can go horribly wrong, but the author handles Jason's arc in this one perfectly, with unexpected repercussions from his actions scattered throughout, some with tragic results for Jason.

The secondary characters are an interesting bunch, from a nascent hero in the making that has his eyes opened, to an assassin that learns that things aren't always what they seem, who learns she may have a different path in life than she expected. There really isn't a specific antagonist at this point, with the Towers themselves, as well as the worldwide tensions over control of the Towers, creating all the antagonism that Jason and his fellow climbers face. Watching Jason try and reverse things that will set humanity back in the future in the face of this adversity will really draw the reader in. 

The narration is performed by one of my favorite narrators, Steve Campbell. He creates unique voices for each of the characters, and even takes care to create different intonations for various different races and creature types. He really helps draw you into the story, and his narrative pacing is excellent as usual. If you enjoy audiobooks, I'd recommend trying this one.

This was a really enjoyable book for me. I really liked the various swerves on standard fantasy and LitRPG tropes, and the author does an excellent job setting up future installments without leaving the reader thinking they got shortchanged. I think this book will have a lot of appeal for fans of LitRPG, as well as fans of fantasy and anime as well. I highly recommend this book.