Godscourge, Book 1: Star Crucible

A Progression Fantasy Adventure

By: Felix Taylor

Narrated by: Michelle Stull

Defy the gods. Wield an ocean of power. Rise above everything. The gods and their children rule everything with an iron fist. But Vayra has a secret. She’s sharing a soul with one of them. Growing up as a mortal street rat, she only knew a few things: they loved power, hierarchies, and respect. She was at the bottom of the food chain. She was never supposed to amount to much. But she refuses to accept her fate. She’ll do anything to rise above her circumstances, including forming a pact with a rebellious goddess to kickstart her climb to the top. She’s stepping into a wider world, with power struggles beyond what she could ever imagine. Only one thing’s certain: it’s time to take charge of her life, or die trying.

About the series: Godscourge is a weak to strong, cultivation- and xianxia-inspired adventure. Step into a seafaring fantasy world with magic ships, god-emperors, and an underdog main character. Perfect for fans of the Weirkey Chronicles, Cradle, and Beneath the Dragoneye Moons.

©2024 Felix Taylor (P)2025 Felix Taylor

not for me; bad description

I got about halfway through. The story is interesting enough, and the narrator does a decent job, although, her voice is flat enough most of the time that it's easy to accidentally time her out.

My only real problem is it doesn't grab my attention at all. I think it's a mix of both the narrator and the story. Neither are bad, which is a good thing, but neither are really fantastic either. On the story side, maybe it's just my general dislike so far of the way most xianxia books are written, but it's a weird mix of frantic, insistent, and vague that I personally don't like, which is funny, because the plot is something similar to an idea I had to write a story.

Also, the description is a fat lie "she has a secret". No, she doesn't, everybody knows basically immediately, she doesn't hide it, I don't know if she even can. She practically shouts it from the rooftops with her actions immediately after getting powers, and everyone else seems to know how her powers work better than she does. secret my ***

I went in primed for a specific type of story because of the way the description is worded, and we almost immediately disappointed.

On the good side, you have space pirates, star magic and interesting non-human humanoid races. it's generally pretty interesting, there's some action scenes that are relatively exciting, and the way her magic works is pretty cool in my opinion. I just don't like being lied to about what I'm buying.

pirate punk in space

An interesting spin on character growth using a link to the gods. This pirate punk in space story follows a downtrodden youth who meets an eclectic cast of characters. She travels through the lower parts of a dense city, onto a sea and space faring vessel, and beyond. Worlds building and character interactions were quite fun.

Get Past the Introduction

I almost quit on this before the end of the Introduction. It was very monotone, and felt like a 3rd grader wrote it. Things like "He said..." followed by "She said... " and the "They said..." over and over again back to back.

Once I got through the introduction and the story and performance got so much better.