Dark Age

Fantastic book, but!

I asked pierce brown over twitter why they changed two of the narrators and he responded that it was because of fan comments.
I don't think this was a good choice as both new narrators are in my eyes not as good as those they replaced.
That being said, this is a brutal master piece that is better than Iron Gold.

5 people found this helpful

Bloody damn prime.

First things first: the story is, as ever, epic. You don’t want me to tell you what happens, so suffice it to say this book is wonderfully gripping like all those before it; books 2, 3 and 4 exhibited a slight decline in the chaotic nature of our beloved protagonist, but it’s safe to say that’s on the climb once more. It is full of beautifully arranged twists, turns, and shock-factor reveals - both predictable and otherwise. New and old characters change in ways we love and hate. The future of the worlds looks equally hopeful and bleak in an arrangement which keeps the reader impossibly hooked on more. I loved this book. Dare I say it could be my favourite so far...?

Voice actors: you gory well know, obvious as one of Sevro’s farts inside a scarab skin, that most other voice actors simply are not in the same league as T.G.R. (Darrow); whose abilities I need not waste time appraising here; although in this book I felt a distinct improvement from the backup actors to those that came before.
Lyria: Slightly-annoying-and-airy-wistful-Irish-Lyria (from the earlier books) is acted rather better by the slightly more common Londoner’s tongue in this book, in my opinion. No spoilers here, but Lyria’s actor also does a VERY good job of reading for Gold and Obsidian characters. Lyria has gone from among my least favourite chapters/characters to one of my favourites.
Lysander: Lysander is also far, far better than the earlier actor, who by all accounts could have been reading from a textbook at school for a subject he doesn’t care about - “get through it as fast as possible, and if I can save time by exercising exactly the same cadence for each sentence, regardless of speech or narration, I will.” This actor does a MUCH better job. Uppity little pricklick makes you want to reach through the touchscreen and smack him into Lykos.
Ephram: Ephram still fails to annunciate his ‘S’ sounds (making ‘he’ and ‘she’ a real hoot to decipher), and his fricatives are a bit loose, but his sense of presence in the story as well as his ability to bring zeal to his flow with the book is excellent - almost as good as TGR.
Virginia: doesn’t get a great deal of airtime compared to the others, but builds a great character with what she’s allocated. Calm, authoritative, threatening, sharp, she’s every bit what I imagine mustang-come-sovereign to be.

*Sevro’s voice* Spend your credits and hard earned cash heeeere! Come and get your next dose of the Reeeeaaaapperrrrrr!!!!!

2 people found this helpful

Change in readers?

There was nothing wrong with the two readers dropped in part 4. In fact I though they were just as good. There is nothing wrong with the two new readers.
What is wrong is that a change was made.
The two new readers must re-record book four. Or the previous readers read book 5.
Am very surprised that the author and publishers after auditions and appointments and publication would succumb to internet trolls and change the readers for this book.
That is poor judgement.

You see it’s not just a single characters voice who changed. It was the readers repertoire of voices who interacted with that character.

That said and out the way... The story is epic! I have read all 5 books during ‘lockdown’ and what a pleasure it has been at this time.

Thank you

2 people found this helpful

Everyone now comes from Essex apparently.

The problem with audio books is that you don't see the names of characters written down, so at times you can be a little lost as to who this knight is or that tyrant.
With a character sheet that had grown quite long over the previous 4 books, it's time for a bit of a cull.

Delivered with the usual gusto and a grand sweep Mr Brown thins out the herd, game of thrones style, with as much gore as he can muster.

However, there is a slight nagging feeling that half way through the book, he had a cracking new idea for the direction the narrative should be heading in. A random new character out of the blue is dropped into the narrative and any conflict with past plot points is hand waved away.

Which sets up the final book nicely.

I await which regional accent Lyria will get next with interest.

1 person found this helpful

Death and more death

Nope I didn’t enjoy this. Yep there are characters that you want to hear their path but there was no tea plot no real engaging story. I ended up running this in 1.5 speed and even then still skipped ahead on the last 4 hours. Such a shame I loved the first 3 enjoyed the 4th but this nope I’m done. Some of those scenes were just too much.

3 people found this helpful

Gripping; but minor audio and performance issues

I found this absolutely gripping. While a little clichéd in places, it made my drive to and from work speed by, and sets the scene for the final book of this trilogy.

Regarding the quality of the audiobook:

The main issue I had with the audio was that it was too quiet. Much of my commute is on the motorway, so I expect to have to turn the volume up a bit. However, for this book, I had to turn it up a lot; and for Ephraim in particular, even with the volume at maximum, there were still times when I couldn't hear everything he said.

Regarding the narrators: Ephraim and Darrow were as solid as ever. I preferred the accent of the previous Lyria, but the new one did a good job, and the voice she used for Victra was just right. Where the previous Lysander sounded like he was bored of the whole thing (and not in a good way), the new one did a good job in combining casual arrogance and a general feeling of superiority and destiny. Virginia I felt was the weakest of the bunch; while she was fine when voicing Virgina herself, she made no changes for other characters, which was occasionally confusing; and she made a number of mispronunciations.

Finally, the producers didn't do a great job of ensuring consistency between all the narrators. It meant that some names and places were pronounced differently by different people; and the same character could end up with a different accent depending on who was voicing them (for example, when Ephraim was quoting Lyria, he used the accent of the narrator from the previous book.)

But despite all that, this was still a good listen.

1 person found this helpful

Shame about the new readers and new accents...

Loved all of them, but to many new readers and accents for the same charictors

1 person found this helpful

Devastatingly good

Dark Age is brilliant but be warned - it is dark and leaves you with very little hope (for the revolution, the main characters, for the human race(s) and the worlds). Each time I started listening, I found it hard to stop (as always with this series). However, I was also hesitant to start listening each day. It's sad and heart-breaking and terrible and I needed to make sure I had the energy or right headspace to deal with it each time I listened. These books reflect how stupid, self-absorbed and easily lead people are but also how bold and grand people can be. Can't wait for the next one but thank goodness it's not here right now because I need some time to recover.

Spoilt by the narrator

I love these books, but as they have continued they have progressively added more narrators. That hasn’t been a problem until one narrator came along and spoilt it.
The character who played Lyria started in an Irish accent then by half way through turned into an Essex accent! There has been no explanation for it or that her accent has changed due to a prolonged period of time changing it.
Also the Lyria character seems to me like it has been written by a co-author, as it’s so different from the writing and characters that have appeared and developed throughout the series.
Overall I’m happy I listened to it and have finished the series as it was still enjoyable.
The story is great and the intense descriptions of the environments enabled you to visualise everything.

Slooow and drawn out...

...too many moving parts and so many many characters and the loss of a really good one too.