"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
-Albert Camus
Happy is a stand-alone novel and the nineth book of the Awaken Online series by Travis Bagwell, released on December 7th, 2021.
Beginning roughly around the time of Catharsis, the book follows college football student Dominic Hart who after a lifetime of hardship and beating the odds is informed he has cancer. Facing less then a year to live, an act of kindness has him signed up for an conventual therapy program centered on a new game called Awaken Online.
Dom's luck doesn't get any better as soon as he logs in: he gets swindled by a shifty casino owner, gets dropped into a hellhole of a jungle where everything (including dumb luck) can kill you, and the only city for miles is controlled by doctorial player guild.
But that's just how life is. Always betting against the house and when the chips are down you wither fold or call. So Dom goes all in and with some luck he might save his life.
More importantly he might find some happiness…
Not to be confused with the Syfy series.
Examples of Tropes in this work…
- 0% Approval Rating: <The Jackals>, the local Traveler guild is this to the Residents and other players who are rejected from joining their ranks. They have a stranglehold on the city, hoarding the best materials for themselves, and only caring about making their highway out of the jungle instead of trying to improve the city. Com and Adrian quickly become well-liked by Resident merchants and none-<Jackal> players for their farming of materials and quickly make money taking contracts out on the guild.
- Arc Words: "Are You Ok?" The question that Dom is repeatedly asked the first half of the book, which only remind shim of his own terminal diagnosis in the real world. Admitting that no, he is not ok, to Adrian kicks off their goal to use the in-game economy to get the money for his treatments.
- Breather Episode: Despite the Downer Beginning, Happy is lightly more humorous and lighthearted with none of the conspiracies or events of the other books having no impact on the plot.
- The Bus Came Back: Vanessa the Water Mage, Finn's chief rival in Mages Guild, from Tarot trilogy and Lauren, the underage leader of the <War Dogs> from the second book Precipice are amongst those who join Dom and Adrian's guild <Death and Taxes>.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: <The Jackals> Traveler Sean represents players in AO who only see it as another typical, albeit hyper-realistic, RPG game. Not only does he treat the goblins as mobs to be killed over and over despite evidence they are intelligent, but he cruelly tortures Wingman for sheer sadism to screw with Dom, permanently disfiguring her.
- Downer Beginning: The book opens on Dom receiving news that he has a extremely advance form of cancer with treatments ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars to a million in cost.
- The Dreaded: Wingman the adorable baby chicken that Dom adopts as an in-game pet. Yes really. The bird is quickly revealed to be possibly the most dangerous example of wildlife in the area due to being a Battle Chicken. An carnivore that eats anything and never stops growing, capable of becoming so powerful any other wildlife's first instinct is band together and try to kill them, especially when they're babies and defenseless. Even the mothers, after laying her eggs, will deliberately draw the animals and abandon her nest simply because the species is no territorial.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Dom, Adrian, and Wingman make an appearance in the early part of the book Hellion by Gloria Bastion, the book giving context to their actions that she, naturally, twisted to match her viewpoint.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: The jungle surrounding Aislen has been affected from the Mana well the city is situated on, the surrounding area being mutating every piece of wildlife and even the fauna to be deadly.
- Foil: Dom, Adrian, and Wingman is a far more eclectic group compared to Jason or Finn's entrouge.
- Dom, unlike the other Avatars, had his Mana pool locked out and has zero magical abilities relying on pure physical abilities and his own wits. His starting city already sits on a Mana well affecting the surrounding forests, the Air Affinity race already exits.
- Adrian, although he bulks up on stats thanks to Dom's training, is a purely supporting role as a Bard which is treated by others and even himself as a case of What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?. He is also the sole companian to Dom and never knew him before the game unlike Riley, Frank, and Julia.
- Wingman to Onyx and Daniel, being an animal companion to an Avatar that acts as an in-game pet. However, she is a Badass Adorable Dreaded creature known as a "Battle Chicken" that primarily acts a means of drawing wildlife to the players to hunt.
- Foregone Conclusion: Due to his Early Bird Cameo in Hellion, readers who follow the main book series will know that Dom is the Air Avatar for The Gambler, the god of Happiness and Yellow Mana. The book follows his entering the game, meeting his companions, and how his actions are to gather the money to treat his medical needs.
- Nice Girl: The nurse from the university clinic is this, being frustrated by the apathetic medical care system and sympathetic to Dom's condition. She ends up kicking starting the plot when she signs him up for "alternative therapy" via Awaken Online.
- Odd Friendship: Dom and Adrian, the former The Stoic, slightly cynical, and a man of few words while the latter is energetic, optimistic, and a Motormouth. The book seems them develop a Fire-Forged Friendship and become True Companions after their Training from Hell. Solidified when Adrian becomes the first person Dom tells his diagnosis to and instead of sympathy or worse apathy, the bard immediately hatches on a plan to use the in-game economy to pay for Dom's medical care.
- Underestimating Badassery: While nothing compared to how they shape up after Dom's guidance and training, <The Jackals> severely underestimate the intelligence and craftiness of the goblins. The greenskins would hide their most valuable equipment in the very room the Travelers believe to be a respawning Boss raid, locking a local animal from the jungle for the players to kill and then leave none the wiser.
- Your Days Are Numbered: Dom has an advance form of cancer with only six months to a year left. There is a cure but it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars at minimum: luckily Adrien comes up with the plan to form a guild and take contracts (which pay in real world money) to pay for it.
