Forces from Beyond

Ghost Finders #6

by Simon R. Green

The North Sea is bitterly cold, grey and unfriendly... and it's also home to a major threat to humanity. The interdimensional entity known as the Flesh Undying, a monstrous being of unimaginable power, is way out of the Ghost Finders' league, so JC Chance, Melody Chambers and Happy Jack Palmer have no choice but to accept an alliance with their evil counterpart, Project Crowley.

What they don't yet know is that the creature lurking in the seabed has already turned its eye upon the Ghost Finders - and dispatched an assassin with a deadly vendetta against them...

Genres: Urban Fantasy, Fantasy, Paranormal, Horror, Ghosts, Fiction, Science Fiction

304 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 7, 2016

About the author

Simon Richard Green is a British science fiction and fantasy-author. He holds a degree in Modern English and American Literature from the University of Leicester. His first publication was in 1979.

His Deathstalker series is partly a parody of the usual space-opera of the 1950s, told with sovereign disregard of the rules of probability, while being at the same time extremely bloodthirsty.

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very nice finale to the Ghost Finders series, though a bittersweet one at best. Things don't all turn out as we would wish. You'd think with a character named Happy.... Oh well. The core gang and friends and definitely-not-friends-but-allies-of necessity finally face off against the big bad from volume one. The undersea setting is very well done, and the story is a good page-turner that ties up the hanging threads quite satisfactorily. The only annoying bits were some intrusive attempts to tie this series in with some of Green's other works for no good reason or effect. I believe I may prefer the Nightside series overall, but the Ghost Finders books have been fun.

[Leila Anani · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been addicted to this series from the outset - Torchwood meets the Dresden Files with fantastic characters and the wonderful scope of imagination that Simon R. Green is such a master at. I was so excited by this final volume in the series which draws together the whole Lovecraft inspired Flesh Undying series plot. And indeed for the most part it delivers - Latimer is kicked out of the Carnaki institute by a coup and our Ghost finders have to join forces with the evil Crowley project whom we haven't seen since book 1. The Faust also makes a welcome reappearance.

Tick tick tick. Loved the unexpected traitor - did not see that coming. And I also really loved the setting at sea and the Bathysphere for the final showdown.

What I did not like was the resolution and why this only gets two stars. I didn't like the ease with which the Flesh undying was taken out and the whole JC talking with the god-like beings seemed very clichéd. The character of Kim, always a little annoying didn't suddenly offer up some interesting plot/character twist which I'd been hoping for. However the novel's biggest flaw is the unnecessarily high death-toll - There are 6 main characters - only two survive and one of those two was dead to begin with! The series has been setting us up for one death - but nearly everyone? seriously? It is very harsh considering how easily the big bad was taken care of.

I guess the ending does set things up for a complete re-boot/follow on series, but as a reader who has lovingly followed these characters for 6 books it's a bit of a gut punch.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have listened on CD to JC, Kim Happy and Melody through all of their adventures. I did the same with Forces from Beyond. I did not realize that this was their last adventure but I have to say it was a very good one. The Flesh Undying has been an enemy for a long time and now it is time to send it back where it came from. Other old enemies also show up to make trouble. While there is danger there is also humor to go with it. I loved the ending. It was just right for all four of the main characters.

[Ming · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 just a mess of a final book in a series

[Gökçe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Altı kitaplık bir seri için çok başarılı bir son oldu. Simon R. Green umarsamaz heyecanı ve inanılmaz düş gücü ile şaşırtıcı gerçeklikte ve gerçek olamayacak kadar güzel hikayeler anlatıyor. Modern fantastik sevenler için kaçırılmaması gereken bir seri.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This was an action-packed whirlwind. There were so many twists and turns that I was almost dizzy.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

The end of the Ghost Finders? This last book wrapped up the demise of the Flesh Undying a little too easily if you ask me. Still, all is as it should be as we say goodbye to JC, Melody and Happy-with the exception of Kim possessing Natasha Chang's body. That just gives me the creeps and must be a permanent turn off for poor JC!

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the best Ghostfinders novel Green has written. Characters are fantastic.

[Daphne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good ending to the series. I was content with how Green tied up all of his characters.

[Ben Truong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forces from Beyond is the sixth and final book in Ghost Finders series written by Simon R. Green. It stars a second string team in the Carnacki Institute, who hunts ghosts.

The Ghost Finders from the Carnacki Institute reluctantly join forces with their rivals Project Cowley to battle a major threat to humanity – The Flesh Undying, an inter-dimensional monstrous being with unimaginable powers. Matters get complicated when the very creature under the seabed dispatches an assassin against the Ghost Finders, who has a deadly vendetta against them.

Forces from Beyond is written rather well. The narrative wraps up the story lines and series rather well and positively brims with details that mark it as being in the same reality as the other Green series, be it a Hand of Glory made from the remains of Drood or one of the characters turning out to be the granddaughter of a Nightside recurring character.

Overall, the Ghost Finders series is a moderate one. It started off rather slow and mediocre, but improved as the series continued on. On paper, a rag-tag team facing off against ghosts and inter-dimensional creatures seems like a good and humorous idea. However, in comparison to his other works, these powerless people fall rather flat at moments. While not my favorite Green series, it is rather well done nevertheless.

All in all, Forces from Beyond is written rather well and is a good continuation to a moderate book series.

[Cynik · Rating 2 out of 5]

The series end. It is somewhat predicable in how it ends but satisfactory.

This is a review for the series (books 1-6) Graphic Audio version. So that means this isn't quite the same as the text version since they dramatize it and basically make it into a play. Perhaps I would have liked the text version better. They are entertaining but like goofy action popcorn flick movies. There isn't any depth here. There tends to be a lot of repetition of phrases and descriptions. Sometimes within the same book, almost always from book to book. This is in a shared universe with his Nightside books but I liked those much more.

It was entertaining but not quite good enough to make the 3 star rating (which is my normal rating for most books - it has to be really good to get 4 or 5 stars for me.)

[Simon Salomon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very nice way to end off the ghost rider series. One of Simon Green’s best series together with the nightside and drood series. It was an interesting way to end off the series. It did feel a bit bittersweet but there was a sense that the main characters got the closure that was needed. However I did feel that the climax was abit rushed and although it was something that was being built up towards for the past few books in the series already, the climax ended in just a few pages. Other than that it was a good way to end a good series.

[Sherrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great ending with J.C. and I honestly will miss this series. Simon did a great job building up the characters of the Ghost Finders. I was captured with Book 1 of the series and have read all of them. J.C., Melody, Kim and Happy have met their match in the last book of the series when they are to take on Flesh Undying. JC picks up something from one of his place that he has stashed away for times like this and it is interesting how it saves him at the end.

[David J. Falkenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book to finish series

Great book to complete series in Ghost Finders. I like all of Simon Green’s series. Especially the Nightside series. He creates interesting storylines and great characters you get involved in.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final book did a pretty nice job of tying everything together. I will admit that the Happy plot was really starting to get more depressing than funny. I think if that aspect wasn't so overplayed, I probably would have given the last book 5 stars.

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I guess we will see........................

[M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really disappointing ending.

[Abiearam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in 2019

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pribeh sa uzatvara, vsetko co sa doteraz udialo zrazu ma vyznam a zmysel a postavy celia najvacsej hrozbe zo vsetkych doposial. Zaroven je to naozaj posledna kniha serie.

[Kaveh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know if it was original or not but i really liked the idea of flesh undying. and i really enjoted the way Happy and Melanie died but JC stayed alive. very nice read.

[Elar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little bit corny, but very likable end to the series.

[Vinayak Malik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally the end of the series wit ha damp Squib. For all the buildup the join hands and defeat the evil guy trope is too repetitive

[Aidenmorningstar · Rating 2 out of 5]

so many continuity errors that it now Simon R Green books seems more like comedy rather than fantastic noir i mean not just minor continuity like in companion series Eddie Drood saw Happy Charmer drinking ani Wulfshed club and in this Ghost Finder including Happy is excited to be invited to Wulfshed but major continuity error the plot point like the black blob the drood door was never a dimensional door which Latimer so much use in this book but a portable door just through the solid spaces even Drood doesn't have that kind of Dimensional Doors to be gifting other as save merlin glass which was itself a gift from Merlin Satanspawn ,Droods themselves are forced to travel by planes and cars ok empressive planes and cars like reverse engineered alien craft or custom made bentley but still just planes and cars.
The Major problem this series face is that it doesn't add up with its companion novel The Drood series in Drood series though obviously to bring attention to its other series the carnaki institute is treated as recognized and respected and even called on occasions (even then not the boss which answers the summon but sends one of her underlings) to discuss strategy on things but here even the Boss so obviously in need of desperate help don't approach Droods for the problem which should have been there in the first place (as the routinely deals with problem like these) stating won't believe her when asked why first carnaki institute and then Latimer alone isn't approaching them with this problem when Latimer was more than ready to destroy world rather than let flesh undying win
Secondly in Droods series we see that Droods take on such a minor cases as when aa aussie had planned to kill birds in london tower to humiliate British crown a Droods agent is there to prevent this and whole Nerd convention died in mysterious circumstances and Droods aren't even paying enough attention to know for themselves what's going on or listen to Latimer for that matter who was present on scene kinda funny that Droods now paying even more attention on birds than people when Protector Of Humanity is there job description
Further discontinuity in the book is Flesh Undying itself it is not said to be evil just lost desperate to go home but it is said to be mad and dreaming but still it is also said to be sane and conscious enough to recruit specific agents provide them with weapons and pieces of itself and even continuously on occasions shield them so that they stay hidden one would ask why just it doesn't just use that much sanity and consciousness to simply open a door back home when he is sane and conscious enough to recruit agents and can open doors to its home world just by dreaming about how he got here

[Spot · Rating 5 out of 5]

not sure where he is going from here (if there will be more).......

[Faye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read: September 2015
Rating: 5/5 stars - one of the best reads of 2015

The plot: the Ghost Finders and their boss, Catherine Latimer are forced to work with their enemies, agents for the Crowley Project in order to destroy a monstrous being that has been forced into their world from another dimension - the Flesh Undying.

Things I liked:
- I love Green's style of writing. It really shouldn't work as he is choppy, includes way too much exposition and pulls the deus ex machina card more often that any writer should but it all works for Simon R Green.
- The nods to Green's other series like the Nightside and the Secret History. I haven't read the Secret History series (though I do own the first few) but I enjoyed seeing an old Nightside character make an appearance, and to find out how he is connected to the Carnacki Institute.
- As always I am impressed with the depth of Green's imagination and how original he is as a writer.
- The ending. I was so sure that Happy would survive despite being told repeatedly during the course of the book that he was dying. I never could have imagined the way events played out. I'm sorry that Melody had to die alongside Happy as I think she could've learned to live without him and move on and find happiness but it was emotional and I felt JC's loneliness at the thought he'd been left all alone. I'm glad he found some sort of happiness with Kim in Natasha's body though that must've been very weird at first :)

Things I didn't like:

- I thought the beginning of the book - the haunted hotel room - was a bit carelessly written as though Green wasn't as interested in writing this introductory adventure as he was in writing about the main storyline.

Overall I loved this book and I am so sad that there will be no more Ghost Finders adventures in the future.

[David Caldwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Ghost Finders are back in their biggest challenge yet. The Flesh Undying and his agents are finally making their move. They even infiltrated the Carnacki Institute. Now, J.C. Chance, Melody Chambers, Happy Jack Palmer, and Kim the ghost find themselves stuck between life-threatening challenges without any support and only a few allies to help save the world one final time. (Warning: this is the final book in the Ghost Finder series.)

Simon R. Green has written some of my favorite books. The Ghost Finders was always good but maybe not one of my favorites. After having read the Nightside and Drood series, it is hard to go to the slightly smaller scale of the Ghost Finders. The heroes in both the Nightside and Drood series are either more than human or at least have equipment that makes them that way, so their villains were also larger than life andvaried in scope. The Ghost Finders are much more human in scope and they focus on the things that go bump in the night (ghosts mainly). It just always seemed there was less to explore in their world. In fact, you can say all of the books were leading to this confrontation with the Flesh Undying.

This book has one flaw really. It is depressing. Jack keeps saying he is dying. Kim is having a harder time staying in the world of the living. Both J.C. and Melody are afraid of losing their loves. All of them feel fighting the Flesh Undying is hopeless. They go from one deadly encounter to another (and usually losing) until the ending which while extremely difficult was also too easy. The whole time I was reading, I kept thinking, this is the end of the series. And it is. Goodbye Ghost Finders.

[Limejuize · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give this book 3 1/2 stars. I have so many mixed feelings about this book. First of all I did not know that this was the end, so the book took me by complete surprise. I personally would have been more than happy to read more of this series and spend more time getting to know the team, but alas I don't think that isn't going to happen. :( So I am upset at the rather abrupt end, but it didn't kill my enjoyment of the book.

I had some issues with the ending but not because of how it ended. It was abrupt and fast and only took 10 pages, but overall the actions made perfect sense. The only issues I had with it was it wasn't fleshed out. It was like reading an outline of the true ending. It was missing all of the emotional heart, which now that I think about it does seem to be a theme across Green's works. He is excellent at world building and he excels at action scenes and just out and out creeping me out; but emotional scenes tend to fall flat. With this ending he had an excellent chance to really stick it to the reader emotionally and add some drama but he doesn't and the ending suffers for it.

Ok so lack of emotional depth aside I enjoyed the book. It was just as much fun to read as all the others. Green has such a knack for description and action that you can't help but be pulled into his worlds.

[Yoyodyne · Rating 1 out of 5]

It went well for the first half, then bogged down into needles repetitious dialogue in the second half, and wrapped up in a sloppy bow to get the author out of the corner he'd painted himself into.

For those who were not satisfied with the sloppy bow tied to the end of the "Deathstalker" series when it was concluded (twice!) then this will come as no surprise.

Great books to start, lousy ending. I will also again take issue with whomever is doing the cover art should maybe READ THE DESCRIPTION OF THE CHARACTERS but that is a small and secondary irritation that has been with me for the whole of the series publication.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've really enjoyed this series, and I like everything about this final book except the ending - not the ends/new beginnings Green created for each of the characters, but the penultimate scene in which those ends come to be. Given how much I enjoy his writing and how good he is at crafting epic confrontations between the natural and the supernatural, this one just seemed to fall flat. Maybe the premise of the confrontation was too big, too ... philosophical? Somehow, for me, it just didn't quite work. I liked where he got everyone to, just not how he got them there.

[Alexander Draganov · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best boon in the Ghost Finders, possibly Simon's best since "Deathstalker Coda". Very powerful, emotional and with so many great ideas, although it seems a bit inspired from "The Call of Cthulhu". Simon R. Green is the greatest of the modern fantasy authors and J.C. Chance, the protagonist in this book, is his best hero.
Detailed review in Bulgarian here:
http://citadelata.com/forces-from-bey...