Synopsis:
A small-time scrapper and his pet robot will fight their way out of the junk-heap in a tournament that will either make them richer than gods or rip them apart in the first book of Django Wexler’s lightning paced progression fantasy adventure for fans of Cradle and Dungeon Crawler Carl.
Taj lives in a junkheap, scavenging scrap to keep his family fed and dodging the monsters who live among the wreckage. His only edge is a smart-ass construct named Star he built himself. Taj dreams of winning big with Star in the construct fighting circuits, but victory always seems just beyond his reach and the debt collectors are at the door.
His world changes forever when someone there makes him an offer that seems too good to be true: a chance to fight in the Ascent, the ultimate fighting tournament, for a prize beyond his wildest fantasies. But things that seem too good to be true usually are, and Taj finds his new benefactor comes with plenty of new enemies. As he ventures beyond the only world he’s ever known, he discovers it’s not just his money on the line in the Ascent — it’s his life.
When you start at the very bottom, the only way out is up…
Review:
A few years back my son got hooked on watching one thing. Every night for weeks he would come home and find one thing on the television — BattleBots. It’s this competition where people engineer remote controlled robots that engage in combat in an enclosed ring. The ingenuity of some of the engineers was astounding — building bots that flipped their opponent, that had built-in flame-throwers for when their opponents were near, that rotated like a mechanical hurricane…you name it, it was probably something that one of them attempted in the competition.
As I was reading Django Wexler’s The Only Way Out Is Up, I couldn’t help but think of those nights watching BattleBots with my son. In Wexler’s universe, the machines are called constructs that use interchangeable parts of machinery as well as abilities fueled by a magic system. There are different types of battles being fought, but throughout it the bots are instructed by the human controllers — all of them except Star, Taj’s robot who, contrary to the rest of the constructs, is sentient and communicates by telepathy.
For Taj, the title of the book is his entire story — The Only Way Out Is Up. In Taj’s world, there is literal stratification where the bottom is literally being crapped on by everyone ele. Junk tech gets dumped on them every day with no end in sight. For those above Taj’s level, life is better, but not without their own issues and problems and that’s where Ky steps in. She’s got her own problems after her father has been assassinated, but she also has access to more money and privilege. For both Taj and Ky, they have things to lose and gain, but both have their own unique motivations which made their stories even more compelling to me.
This is a progression story, ala Will Wight’s Cradle or Dungeon Crawler Carl, but Django Wexler put his own unique spin on it, making it a technological advancement with Star, as opposed to levels with the main character. It isn’t all up and up and up, as Taj, Ky, and Star certainly get humbled a few times along the road to the top, but it makes the journey all the better.
If you read Wexler’s last couple books (The Dark Lord Davi duology), the humor is fully a part of the narrative, but definitely isn’t as over the top as the time-loop fantasy pair. While DCC is a comparison, it isn’t because of the language or crude humor — in fact, this is a very accessible book for many age ranges and I think it would work really well as either a young adult or mainstream sci-fi novel.
I definitely recommend Django Wexler’s The Only Way Out Is Up for the progression fiction fans out there, for anyone that just wants a great time with your next read, or for all the BattleBot stans out there. I had a fun time with it and am always looking forward to Wexler’s latest.
Thank you to Orbit Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
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