Ascension Games: Proving Grounds

By: Shawn Wilson, Kent "Reckless" Mercer

Narrated by: Jonathan Waters, Hannah Trusty

Three worlds. One brutal competition. And a guy just trying to do the right thing, most of the time.

When the Ascension Games began, Earth was thrown into a deadly contest against two alien civilizations. Every battle is livestreamed. Every move is watched. Survival means leveling up fast or dying for the audience.

Zach never set out to be a hero. He just wanted to stay alive. But between climbing the ranks and dodging death, he found a few unlikely allies. Some of them aren't even human.

Now, with the fate of three worlds at stake, Zach is doing whatever it takes to protect the people he cares about. Even if some of them were supposed to be his enemies.

Because in the Games, power matters. But trust is what keeps you breathing when everything starts to fall apart.

©2025 Shawn Wilson and Kent "Reckless" Mercer (P)2025 Royal Guard Publishing LLC

First Third of the book was great, but

As the story continued it just kept getting weaker and weaker. Writer makes up drama just to throw in which really just kept pulling away from the story for me. Truly thought I had a good one though for that first part. Narrator's were good, I at least enjoyed the performance. Last few hours took me several days to finish if that helps any.

PFantaaric

I absolutely loved every minute of the story. Jonathan and Hannah blew it out of the water too.

Love the story world!!!

I really love the story world and concept in this one. The three races, the distribution and staging of resources and enemies, the tangibility if something to fight for. The audio version, however? It drove me nuts that every mention of an ability name was spoken by the female voice. System messages and stat sheet reads by her are great, but skill name during combat or encounter was just jarring. Still, bring on book two!!! I want to see how this story continues! Town management, leadership, dungeons, alliances, growth!!!

Brutal Humanity

Great performance, good story. A brutal telling of the main character’s primal, but heroic sense of justice. I didn’t like the “jump-cut” like edits in some of the audio. Not terrible but a little jarring. Otherwise, I can’t wait for the next one! I’m completely captivated!

meh

This is the story you get when you order Dungeon Crawler Carl from Temu.

switching Narrators when ever the abilities are MENTIONED is annoying and breaks the flow.