A Darkwyrlds Tale

Corsairs and Cataclysms 5

By: Devan Drake

Narrated by: Tom North, Faye Bishop

This is the action-packed finale of Corsairs & Cataclysms.

Torin has achieved a great deal and built his personal strength and that of his faction, the Shattered Storm, to heights few on Earth can match.

Unfortunately for him, his greatest challengers do not hail from Earth.

Mercenaries from all over the Darkwyrlds have made landfall on the planet to destroy Torin's home and take his head back to the Dominarius Consortium.

The fragment of Ashli's consciousness remains loose and aims to forge a form capable of co-opting the Framework itself. It has taken possession of the sea-giant Hudson Reed and with him, control of the Wisconsin war host.

Meanwhile, possibly the greatest threat of them all, Titus Shiptaker, lurks in the shadows of the plexus network. Waiting like an ambush predator for his opportunity to seize it all.

Torin will have to plan, fight, and sacrifice to beat all the odds stacked against him. Not just for him, but for the women he loves, the people who depend upon him, and most of all his newborn son Dash.

©2025 Devan Drake (P)2025 Royal Guard Publishing LLC

A finale I found wanting. And once again, Faye Bishop ruins the performance.

I have bought all of these stories. Most are great. I feel like this one rushed the ending though. Shouldnhave been a few more books in there, but it was almost like he lost th thread of the progression system or somethibg. It felt cobbled together at the end. The author's past entries in this series are great. The male lead performer is great. But Gor Ram is Faye Bishop just the absolute worst voice actor ever employed. I'm sure she's a great person, but she needs to look into a new line of work. Every female love interest sounds like a 90 year old smoker. Half of the voices she does for people don't transfer form book to book. She can't do the accents for half the characters. The othe half sounds the exact same. It's just bad. Seriously bad. Like "Whh am I listening to this" awful bad. Please. Someone siop our suffering. Replace her. Please. Dear God. Please. Don't hire her again for the next book. Please. Please stop the pain. Please. Even just a Male lead reader would be fine if she's the budget choice.

Very good

This book was still very good but I must say it is not quite as good as the first books in this series

Not the end this series deserved

Listen, I loved this story. I still really like it. this was a bad way to treat its end. All you have to do is see how dense and thought out the first three books were. Then we got the weird amalgamation that was book 4, and here we are now. This clearly needed another Arc or two. you'd think with the cut away part being shoved into book 4 which still was a complex and interesting arc, if short, that maybe Devon could pull it off here but then you get closer and closer to end and realize it's just going to be mcguffin central.
we lose any further exploration of the libs, Titus never feels like a true threat, and Ashleigh is barely anything. hell we spend as much time on the shard as we do on a mcguffin bearing unnecessary side quest with he hooved horde out of nowhere.

All the stakes and well thought out coming calamities are just... poofed away in a matter of a few hours.

Do I think there should have been another whole book? No. this was unnecessarily the rushed. All the girls are almost totally sidelined, the villains lose their interest, and we get to an admittedly nice wrap up that wasn't earned at the finish line.

Maybe DD just got bored with this series, which is a shame as it held immense potential.

Then we get to the elephant in the room, not Derek though.

Faye Bishop just... I'm sorry I really am I hate disparaging someone doing their job but it's just bad, and that's when there is even any female dialogue... which is noticably lacking compared to other books. Her way of saying words, the weird intonations, the odd voice choices that aren't consistent. maybe it was a lack of Direction in the booth, but it's just bad. it was completely ignorable in the first three books but once book 4 and the strange way DD broke up the books, and also the sudden lack of proper polishing in format and quality, just broke that camel's back.

I do believe C&C is a series worth experiancing, and I do want to check out the other series, but maybe I'll just skim read them, and definitely will check review on any series finale to avoid such a disappointment. DD clearly has skill, but this was a let down.