M.R. Forbes is the author of a growing number of science-fiction series including Rebellion, War Eternal, Chaos of the Covenant, Stars End, and the Forgotten novels. Having spent his childhood trying to read every sci-fi novel he could find (and write his own too), play every sci-fi video game he could get his hands on, and see every sci-fi movie that made it into the theater, he has a true love of the genre across every medium. He works hard to bring that same energy to his own stories, with a continuing goal to entertain, delight, fascinate, and surprise.
He maintains a true appreciation for his readers and is always happy to hear from them.
To learn more about M.R. Forbes or just say hello:
Dead Stare Ghosts & Magic, Volume 3 By: M. R. Forbes Narrated by: Jeff Hays This series is addictive. The last necromancer is dying of cancer but Death wants him, but helping him? He is getting a collection of frienemies. I love this series for the witty comments that are scattered everywhere, the comedy, the crazy characters, the fun situations, the clever plot, the great dialogue, and how it weaves all those together to weave a heart-warming story out of chaos and craziness! I giggle throughout the story at the witty comments or situations and then sober up at some deep thought he throws in my face like ice water. Love it. The narrator is terrific! A true gem! Voices and sound effects are out of this world, literally, lol.
Note: This is Book 3 in the series and it is best to have read the previous books to understand the rules of magic for this series and the characters’s various motivations. Plus, they’re damn entertaining!
Conor Night, a cancer-riddled necromancer assassin, thinks he’s sitting in a good place. His previous job left him well funded, no one is currently hunting him, and the stolen cancer meds are working better than ever. That is until Mr. Black and Death team up to leave him without a virtual reality operator and force him on the run again.
It’s another wild ride in the world of Conor Night, AKA The Baron. While refilling his cancer med stash, he comes across Frank Dobson, who is half troll, half ogre and completely ticked off at being experimented on. Against Conor’s better judgement, he sort of rescued Frank and Frank then steals his money to buy pants. Obviously, once two people have been through that kind of fuss, they have to be comrades. However, as quickly as Conor came across this new ally, someone has kidnapped Prythi, his VR tech guru, away from him. He’ll have to make do with Prythi’s girlfriend Myra, who doesn’t really like him and is a bit distraught over the whole ordeal. I had 2 tiny quibbles with this book and they both dealt with Myra: 1) Sometimes she sounds just like Dani from Book 1 and I think the author must have regretted removing her from the series so soon; 2) At one point Myra reveals something pretty personal about herself to Conor at an awkward moment and it didn’t really make sense that she would confide in him.
OK. Now that I have my two tiny criticisms out of the way, I can tell you how much fun I had with this book. The action is sprinkled with moments of dark humor and Conor doing a bit of introspection, so I never got battle fatigue. Also, I am really starting to like Conor even though he can be quite the jerk at times. He knows he’s done some very questionable things and in this book he really starts to question if he has the right to do those things even in the name of caring for his estranged family. Plus, he’s a smart-ass. I always love the smart-ass.
Frank was an unexpected breath of fresh air to the series. He’s got an almost child-like attitude about all this magic and assassins and stealing stuff and high-powered magical creatures. He’s yet one more victim in Mr. Black’s schemes to find the source of the magic and either control it or wipe it out. Conor won his fierce loyalty when he freed him from years of captive experimentation. As a troll-ogre cross (trogre), he can take quite the beating and heal quickly from nearly anything that leaves a mark.
Tarakona, who we met in Book 2 Dead Red, is back and has a task for Conor as well. Mr. Black is keeping a murky character known as Sandman captive in his secret lair. Tarakona wants Conor to retrieve Sandman and hand her over to him for safe keeping. However, Sandman has been contacting Conor through the VR on her own arguing for her independence from either party. If Conor wants to see Prythi again, then he will have to liberate Sandman from Mr. Black. He can figure out the rest from there.
The magic of the world is creepy. Well, Conor is a necromancer so there is the use of dead cats and little kids to act as spies. His powers grow as he gets closer to death and some of his new powers freak out his allies a little bit. Forbes surprised and delighted me once again with a surprise at the ending. Conor will need therapy after this. The last two hours of the book I simply did not want to put it down. I had to know what Amos’s angle was. I needed to see how much Tarakona knew. I wanted to find out more about Sandman and why she was so vague about herself. I hoped Frank would get a date. That last remains to be seen. Another excellent addition to this urban fantasy series!
I received a copy of this audiobook at no cost from the narrator in exchange for an honest review.
Narration: Jeff Hays continues to set a high standard for narrations. Once again, I loved his uber-creepy voice for the demon in the bone mask. His voice for Tarakona is perfect – exactly what I would expect an ancient and impatient dragon to sound like. Each character is distinct and Hays does a fantastic job getting even the subtle emotions across to the listener. I especially like that he goes the extra mile and makes phone conversations sound like they are happening on a phone or on an ear piece.
Dead Stare by M. R. Forbes Note: This is Book 3 in the series and it is best to have read the previous books to understand the rules of magic for this series and the characters’s various motivations. Plus, they’re damn entertaining! Conor Night, a cancer-riddled necromancer assassin, thinks he’s sitting in a good place. His previous job left him well funded, no one is currently hunting him, and the stolen cancer meds are working better than ever. That is until Mr. Black and Death team up to leave him without a virtual reality operator and force him on the run again. It’s another wild ride in the world of Conor Night, AKA The Baron. While refilling his cancer med stash, he comes across Frank Dobson, who is half troll, half ogre and completely ticked off at being experimented on. Against Conor’s better judgement, he sort of rescued Frank and Frank then steals his money to buy pants. Obviously, once two people have been through that kind of fuss, they have to be comrades. However, as quickly as Conor came across this new ally, someone has kidnapped Prythi, his VR tech guru, away from him. He’ll have to make do with Prythi’s girlfriend Myra, who doesn’t really like him and is a bit distraught over the whole ordeal. I had 2 tiny quibbles with this book and they both dealt with Myra: 1) Sometimes she sounds just like Dani from Book 1 and I think the author must have regretted removing her from the series so soon; 2) At one point Myra reveals something pretty personal about herself to Conor at an awkward moment and it didn’t really make sense that she would confide in him. OK. Now that I have my two tiny criticisms out of the way, I can tell you how much fun I had with this book. The action is sprinkled with moments of dark humor and Conor doing a bit of introspection, so I never got battle fatigue. Also, I am really starting to like Conor even though he can be quite the jerk at times. He knows he’s done some very questionable things and in this book he really starts to question if he has the right to do those things even in the name of caring for his estranged family. Plus, he’s a smart-ass. I always love the smart-ass. Frank was an unexpected breath of fresh air to the series. He’s got an almost child-like attitude about all this magic and assassins and stealing stuff and high-powered magical creatures. He’s yet one more victim in Mr. Black’s schemes to find the source of the magic and either control it or wipe it out. Conor won his fierce loyalty when he freed him from years of captive experimentation. As a troll-ogre cross (trogre), he can take quite the beating and heal quickly from nearly anything that leaves a mark. Tarakona, who we met in Book 2 Dead Red, is back and has a task for Conor as well. Mr. Black is keeping a murky character known as Sandman captive in his secret lair. Tarakona wants Conor to retrieve Sandman and hand her over to him for safe keeping. However, Sandman has been contacting Conor through the VR on her own arguing for her independence from either party. If Conor wants to see Prythi again, then he will have to liberate Sandman from Mr. Black. He can figure out the rest from there. The magic of the world is creepy. Well, Conor is a necromancer so there is the use of dead cats and little kids to act as spies. His powers grow as he gets closer to death and some of his new powers freak out his allies a little bit. Forbes surprised and delighted me once again with a surprise at the ending. Conor will need therapy after this. The last two hours of the book I simply did not want to put it down. I had to know what Amos’s angle was. I needed to see how much Tarakona knew. I wanted to find out more about Sandman and why she was so vague about herself. I hoped Frank would get a date. That last remains to be seen. Another excellent addition to this urban fantasy series! I received a copy of this audiobook at no cost from the narrator in exchange for an honest review. Narration: Jeff Hays continues to set a high standard for narrations. Once again, I loved his uber-creepy voice for the demon in the bone mask. His voice for Tarakona is perfect – exactly what I would expect an ancient and impatient dragon to sound like. Each character is distinct and Hays does a fantastic job getting even the subtle emotions across to the listener. I especially like that he goes the extra mile and makes phone conversations sound like they are happening on a phone or on an ear piece.
This series only gets weirder and weirder. That is not necessarily a bad thing. The story is definitely interesting and I'm definitely on the edge of my seat wondering what the hell is going to happen next.
The new characters to this story were a lot more interesting. Frank definitely lightened up the story and I really liked him. I think he may be my favorite character out of the entire cast. I've come to like Conor, to a degree. I don't feel a whole lot of attachment to anyone else in the story. I think for the most part I really like the magic systems and the plot more than the characters. I think those elements in particular are carrying my interest more than my emotional attachment to any of the characters.
Still, overall an interesting series and I'll be moving on to the last book tomorrow.
Great building on the base we learned in book one. Seeing the necromancy and the items grow with each book is wonderful.
Thank you for the small reminders through the book on what happened previously. It's been a few years since I listened to them, and those refreshers helped me remember the details.
Conor doesn't want connections, but in some way, he ends up with them. A few people are drawn to him, and the loyalty grows. Conor tries to go it alone, but sometimes you need help.
When I learned the reasons and why and who at the end. Oh, I sat back in my seat and thought... Huh. Good. Well played.
I do enjoy that Jeff does different voices for the characters in this book. It helps for me to easily differentiate who's who.
Read the first three of this series and liked them. Not really fond of the protagonist he's kinda an a hole but I'm hoping his character flesh's out and takes on a little more humanity.
I love me some Connor Night!!! In spite of this love, I hate cliffhangers so not happy about the ending. It's still five stars for the part of the story that was book three. Keep em' coming Mr. Forbes.
It's pretty good. The pacing is a little off, I feel like we're missing some downtime and chances to unwind and digest events they happen. Recommended.
Let's just get the whole "I received this book in exchange for a review" thing out of the way now. Moving on.
I think, of the three books in this series I've listened to, this is my favorite. Conor is finally coming into his own and the added Japanese mythology was really freaking cool.
Once again Jeff Hays did an amazing job narrating and is fast becoming one of my favorite narrators.
The only problem with this book was that it ended and there are no more.
(Audiobook review!) Man, Conor's adventures are getting intense!
I'm liking his new friends (and old friends and frenemies) a lot. I didn't expect to like Frank at the beginning, but ended up loving him (also, Birdie and Snuffles... Admittedly I was not expecting what I assume was a Sesame Street reference in the creepy necromancer book, lol).
Finding out the mystery of the dice and mask was awesome. The ending left me so, so ready for more!
As for narration, Jeff Hays is fantastic at telling this story, as usual. The effects (dice/mask/demon/whatevs) were better than ever on this one (and not so much coughing, yay!). Demon voice: awesome. Dragon voice: awesome. Random Japanese chick that I wasn't honestly sure would be awesome: awesome.
Honestly, I'm a Canadian who moved away from Canada and lost my accent so hard that I can't even imitate it anymore (unless I'm talking to my mother, according to my husband, lol). So, I'm always rather in awe of this narrator and his ability to become a thousand different people so seamlessly in one story. As per usual, I am impressed. :)
I'm admittedly not a huge military/space opera follower, but I will most definitely be listening to more of this author's work, especially if it's narrated by Jeff Hays. Their skills seem to really compliment each other.
I enjoyed this third chapter in the Ghosts and Magic series. As Connor embarks on a quest to stop Mr. Black from ending magic and forever changing the world again, the powerful demon inhabiting the three artifacts becomes more insistent. Meanwhile, Connor begins to realize, as his powers grow, that everything he thought to a matter of right and wrong may be a matter of perspective.
In my opinion this is the best of the series. I, literally, couldn't stop reading. Unfortunately, as fast as I inhaled this book, I was even faster in how upset I was that I would have to wait for the next one. Great job and what an awesome world that you have gotten me addicted to.
This series just goes from strength to strength. The new characters add a whole new dimension to the world and provide lots of laugh out loud moments. The narrative is unbelievably compelling. Definitely not the usual run of the mill fantasy series. Simply brilliant!
Forbes continues to amaze me with his skill at story telling. I have yet to find a book of his I don't like. While you're waiting for the next Ghost & Magic book, check out his other series, you won't be disappointed.
Wieder ein Beispiel für Gier ohne Grenzen! 9,99€ für ein EBook (!) von 420 Seiten. Die Marge dabei beträgt satte 7,50€.
Der Herr der Ringe kostet in der Sonderausgabe mit 1553 Seiten dagegen 'nur' 15,99€. Der Nekromant ist also mal locker doppelt so teuer. Auch doppelt so gut? Wohl kaum.
I liked it pretty well, I think the author could benefit greatly from getting a few proofreading eyes on text before releasing it. I think I'm ready for this series to finish out.