Fire and Brimstone

Chaos of the Covenant, Book 2

By: M.R. Forbes

Narrated by: Jeff Hays

Queenie is pissed.

You would be too if you had been blamed for something you didn't do, given something you didn't want, and changed into something else.

She still isn't even quite sure what that else is. The one thing she does know? Things are getting messy, and this is only the beginning.

Gant is gone, Captain Mann has been captured, her so-called team is ready to make a run for the stars, and she's pretty sure the gift that saved her life is no gift at all. Even worse? The enemy didn't just steal the two most powerful starships in the galaxy; they're building a whole damn fleet of the things.

The Rejects are back, the mission is on, and failure is not an option.

Long live the Queen!

©2017 Michael Forbes (P)2017 Michael Forbes

finished it in a day

Not the typical space opera...this one the author had to think outside the box. I am getting scared that i will finish the series within a week of no one stops me

Why do they do this?

First the book is an easy pleasure ... BUT why does Audible not have a method or policies to have reasonably complete sets READY for us to read and as well NOT have a release tracking process in Wsh List to notify or even purchase when NEXT book in series becomes available!!!! My STUPID I have 3 writer series currently waiting for with final or next Abook! Do they really want me to just go buy the book and read? Amazon ... GET IT TOGETHER! Make it so!

Good story concept, but

I am not fond of "soap operas", so when I listen to a book that ends with a "cliff hanger", I am less than pleased. I do enjoy a trilogy, providing all the books are available!

This story has a lot of action, which is a nice change from authors that put in a lot of filler that has little relevance to the action! The story has surprised me a couple of times with the twists in the concept.

I really like this series, so far, and will continue with the next book!

Great listening experience!

Narration so good I decided to listen instead of read. Recommend highly! Interesting characters and fast paced story.

Forbes and Hays are awesome!

I listened to this entire series when it was newly released. The story has flaws, but we’re all flawed humans, right? As someone raised Catholic, I especially loved the touch of Catholicism in this series as both antagonist and protagonist forces behind the scenes. Was it blasphemy? Frag no! Then add in the astounding vocalizations by Jeff Hays who gave every major character a distinctive voice and character. His human vocal chords are on par with the bet of Mel Blanc. If that doesn’t compute, look it up. Anyway…not anyways…I hate writers who don’t know correct English grammar. What is accepted is very different from what is supposed to be taught and learned. Oh well, I’m digressing. Jeff Hays ALONE did all male and female voices. He is one of the few narrators smart enough to use the inexpensive, but very effective voice altering technology to its best results. Sometimes too much delay or reverb, but the entire series was a masterpiece. Now, he is the main force behind the troop called Sound Booth Theater. Don’t believe the voices come from one person, watch their YouTube channel. They even perform bits from different book projects they’ve done or might be new. I’ve read the remarks that say negative things about Jeff, and when inspecting them, they never have anything good to say. I believe those kinds of people are called Trolls. I’d call them something else. And even more ridiculous when they can’t even make proper sentences using correct English words.

Great addition to the series

This story picks up pretty much where the last one left off. Queenie and her crew are recovering from the events of the end of the last book, half scattered here and there, half injured, and their first priority is to find the ones that were captured or left behind. Queenie’s second priority is finding out what they did to her in prison to give her superpowers, because it’s turning out to not be the greatest gift she’s ever been given.

Fire and Brimstone here refers to two super advanced, bonkers powerful spaceships that the enemy has stolen from the Republic. The enemy here being the Nephilim. Space-Nephilim who are fighting the Hell’s Rejects, who escaped from the planet Hell, in their spaceship… the Faust. You see where this is going? This might sound cheesy to you but I thought that all this hellscape and devilry imagery was a pretty good theme for a sci-fi story. We’re starting to get a little more backstory on the Nephilim in this volume as well, which is neat. It’s a cool idea, all told. It’s like Mass Effect, meets Suicide Squad, meets… Dante’s Inferno.

Gant is still by far my favorite character. He’s basically a grouchy, snarky Ewok with an itchy trigger finger, and that’s as awesome as it sounds. It really is. I hope he keeps on being awesome throughout the rest of the series.

Jeff Hays totally nails the narration of this one as usual. At this point, I’m not really expecting anything less than that from him. I’ve been able to sit and listen to pretty much any book he has narrated, even the one that I didn’t really like. In this particular one, each character is unique, accents are on point (I especially like Mann’s accent. It’s a bit different than I normally hear in books and that’s somewhat refreshing), and special effects really help when they are used properly, as they are here. Having an excellent narration really helps me to get into a book. It gives me more of a chance to experience books I would probably find hard to read in print. This sometimes happens to me with hard sci-fi, classics, non-fiction and even some of the longer epic fantasy series. So, I turn to audiobooks. I’ve found some really good books this way, and it has broadened my horizons. The hills are alive with the sound of audiobooks, and so on. *twirls*

My biggest pet peeve for this series thusfar is that the author has…. re-purposed a word as a swear word. This sort of thing irritates me in books, as I have pointed out in other reviews, maybe because I am the foulest of foul mouths, but mostly because it seems really, really unnecessary. These characters speak English, use other swear words as normal, and yet they the word ‘frag’ to very clearly mean... another word that I can't use because I'm being very good for this review. :D So… why not just say that word instead? Battlestar Galactica used the word frak in place of it because they were a television show trying to cleverly bypass television censors, and this usage feels like it’s trying to emulate that in some fashion. There are no censors here though, except for those special snowflakes that can’t hear or see the f-bomb without cringing a little despite probably having no problems with the tons of murder, decapitation and general space-warfare also featured here. To me, the replacement of just that one swear word for one that clearly has the same intent gives this book less of the edge that it looks like and sounds like it should have, if that makes sense. All this imagery of hell and damnation… I feel like a book with giant scary battle destroyers called the Fire and the Brimstone could load a proper f-bomb into their torpedo bays.

Either way, whatever floats your spaceship, I guess. I think I would have appreciated at least a few well placed f-bombs… but that’s me.

All told, I didn’t like this one as much as I liked the first one, but I did still really like it more and more as it went, and I thought it was a pretty good use of 8 hours of my time. I’m excited for the next one in the series!

A thoroughly entertaining sequel

M.R. Forbes is known for writing highly enjoyable series from start to finish and Chaos of the Covenant shows all the signs of keeping that winning tendency with Fire and Brimstone. In addition to delightfully talented writing, Jeff Hays has got to be, if not the best, one of the top five, narrators with the ability to not only put believable voice to both genders but to do so along with providing distinctive character traits such that it really seems like there are multiple narrators accompanying him. Combined, these two continue to provide some of the most delightful audiobooks audible offers.

Oh, and Capt. Mann, surely even in the future, everyone still knows that DQ more recognizably stands for Dairy Queen!

Just as fun with audible as the ebook itself.

Forbes and Hays are quite the team. Fun fantasy space opera. Onward to the 3rd book. I'd have to say, so far, there's just as much care put into indie series as any traditionally published work.

Stay away NO last book from Audible

Love story but this is the third series from Audible that doesn't have the last book, WHY, there is no good reason

Great read!

Continues the story along at a great pace. The narrator is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. Now on to book three!