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 has always fought. He's fought for survival from the gangs, for enough scrap metal and sigils to pay for his next meal, and to keep his robot Star a secret. You see, most robots are useful but dumb. Only as smart as the instructions you can yell at them across a room during a battle. But Star is something else: Star thinks (he's a bit of a smart-ass, to be honest), and he seems to have a unique psychic connection to Taj.
So far, they've managed to make enough money to get by and stay under the radar, but when Taj gambles big and loses, he's got to do something desperate to get back on his feet... like enter the most dangerous bot-fighting competition in the entire world. The Ascent isn't just some rinky-dink competition. Every level they ascend, the bots get bigger, badder, and deadlier, Taj's ability to build better bodies for Star and outwit his opponents is challenged, and Star's secret is at greater risk of being revealed. Django Wexler graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh with degrees in creative writing and computer science, and worked for the university in artificial intelligence research. Eventually he migrated to Microsoft in Seattle, where he now lives with two cats and a teetering mountain of books. When not writing, he wrangles computers, paints tiny soldiers, and plays games of all sorts.
