Dark Age

By: Pierce Brown

Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds, John Curless, Moira Quirk, James Langton, Rendah Heywood

Length: 33 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's Summary

For a decade, Darrow led a revolution against the corrupt color-coded Society. Now, outlawed by the very Republic he founded, he wages a rogue war on Mercury in hopes that he can still salvage the dream of Eo. But as he leaves death and destruction in his wake, is he still the hero who broke the chains? Or will another legend rise to take his place?

Lysander au Lune, the heir in exile, has returned to the Core. Determined to bring peace back to mankind at the edge of his sword, he must overcome or unite the treacherous Gold families of the Core and face down Darrow over the skies of war-torn Mercury. 

But theirs are not the only fates hanging in the balance.

On Luna, Mustang, Sovereign of the Republic, campaigns to unite the Republic behind her husband. Beset by political and criminal enemies, can she outwit her opponents in time to save him? 

Once a Red refugee, young Lyria now stands accused of treason, and her only hope is a desperate escape with unlikely new allies. 

Abducted by a new threat to the Republic, Pax and Electra, the children of Darrow and Sevro, must trust in Ephraim, a thief, for their salvation - and Ephraim must look to them for his chance at redemption.

As alliances shift, break, and re-form - and power is seized, lost, and reclaimed - every player is at risk in a game of conquest that could turn the Rising into a new Dark Age.

©2019 Pierce Brown (P)2019 Recorded Books

Changed Narrators!?! Trash Move Amazon/Audible.

WTF. Lysander had the best voice and this new guy obviously didn't even listen to the other books because he didn't even attempt to pronounce the names of people or places correctly. The recast ed two characters in fact. Just pay them what they want. We sure pay enough for these books!!!!! I am very disappointed in Audible. Very disappointed indeed. It is very hard to listen to. Save your money and read the book. This was just pathetic.

Sound volume

I sure wish the sound engineers had put all the narrators at the same volume

The hope inspired by the series is gone

Too many characters and overwhelmingly sadistic . No one to like or champion. Uncertain if I want to read the next book. The series should have ended with book 3.

Quiet Audio

The book is a good continuation from Iron Gold but the performance is so quiet at times I have to blast it to hear what the characters are saying.

Don’t listen to this

I’ve been with this series since the beginning, and have recommended that others read it. I no longer recommend this series. It took a year to write publish and record this garbage. I couldn’t wait for it to end, and now that it has, I feel cheated. What made the series great was thrown out and replaced by Game of Thrones style over the top garbage. Goodbye!

Least favorite so far.

As much as I looked forward to this book I was a little bit disappointed by time the end came. It felt too....disjointed. As if side quests kept popping up to interrupt the main story.
Even if they were overall connected to the main plot, it still felt like way too much time was spent focused on them. Like a side story could have been written instead.
Alot of the ruminations from the characters felt like filler to pad out the dialogue. I hope the next book is more tightly focused.

Past its Prime

A terrific series that has become tedious. Rather than reaching climactic highs, I kept wishing this read to end. The first few books were wonderful, now the series is searching for a good ending. This wasn't it.

Should’ve stopped after the trilogy

I feel like the author found success in the first three books and then thought he should ride it out and make a long sci-fi epic. In doing so the originals characters feel diluted and the new ones don’t fit into the feel of the first books. And the worst part is the gross senseless violence. Stuff that just didn’t add to the story. The characters are no longer relatable. And that’s not to mention the switch in narration. I gave the performance 3 stars because TGR is TGR but the rest....

More bloodshed and a new PoV character

The war has spread and it now consumes the entire solar system. Blood and violence are pervasive as the fledgling Republic tries to hang against those who oppose it. Many want to return to the old color based society and others view this conflict as an opportunity to rise to power, so there is no shortage of combatants available.  Like the last book, Iron Gold, this story is told from the perspectives of the same PoV characters (plus Mustang this time) and each of them experiences this conflict from a different location within the solar system. With such a complicated set of battles it will take you some time to get your bearings, especially if it has been a while since you read the last book, but once you get everything sorted out this is another wild ride in a series that remains surprisingly compelling.

The body count rises as humanity tries to find some sort of equilibrium in the aftermath of Darrow's rebellion, and it is his storyline that remains the most compelling of the bunch. The other PoV characters all play key roles in the conflict and some new characters also rise to prominence, including Darrow's son Pax who grows into an interesting character in his own right. Despite a number of big moments that have unalterable impact to some of the main characters, this book is not without some Deus Ex Machina which can be a little unsatisfying. However, if you are a fan of the series then you should definitely pick this one up but don't expect much to be resolved in the big picture. The individual battles are tense and exciting, but they do not bring an end to the overall war, so this series will be moving on to book 6. 

Once again it is an ensemble cast of narrators with each PoV character being voiced by a different person. I found them all to be excellent with Tim Gerard Reynolds remaining the best of the bunch.

Why??

Should've had Tim Gerard Reynolds narrate the entire book. He is amazing the others are lame.

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.

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!!!!!

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

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.

33 hours and more questions than answers

This series of books has been a ride and a half, spending time getting to love and hate these characters for so long.
This epic was a bit of a let down for me though.
I found it over long, confusing in places and the end was just a bit meh.
I didn't hate the book and parts had me gripped but it just didn't have the zip of the first four books.
Still, an overall spectacular story and brilliant performances from the cast.

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.

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.

Shame about the new readers and new accents...

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

Some character voices could be better

Overall the story is well read but it would be nice if the various voice actors tried to do similar voices for the same character and kept those voices consistent with previous books.
This book was a nice addition to the series, the previous 2 were starting to feel a bit dragged out. This book has a lot more intrigue and exciting action to keep you entertained.

rather pointless episode

far removed from the initial story and universe I loved. too long with too many dead ends ,you've no idea who to root for it's all got a bit too clever without feeling you are along for the ride. it's like a side character companion book