A LibraryReads Pick!
“Relentlessly creepy and fantastically atmospheric...Ghost Station is space horror at its best.”
—The New York Times
“Perfectly unsettling. Ghost Station scratches the itch for space horror just right—and doesn’t shrink from the grisly consequences of exploring the unknown.”
—Chloe Gong, New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights
“Ghost Station is everything I could want in a horror story and more. Barnes became one of my favorite authors with Dead Silence and this is a stunning follow-up. Highly recommended.”
—Darcy Coates, USA Today bestselling author of Dead of Winter
“Barnes simultaneously slips in small doses of terror that get and stay under readers’ skin, until the entire narrative explodes and holds them entranced for its final act. Barnes (Dead Silence) is quickly cementing herself as the go-to author in space horror.”
—Library Journal
“A skin-crawling, delicious tale of exploration, exploitation, and electrifying horror. I loved (and screeched through) every moment of it.”
—Yume Kitasei, author of The Deep Sky
“Fans of the original Alien film will enjoy this tense psychological-horror story set in a far-flung future as the crew tries to solve the mystery of this abandoned mission while navigating the atrocities of their corporate employer, which they know all too well.”
—Booklist
“A taut, twisting thriller that subverts every trope and expectation in all the best—and most terrifying—ways imaginable.”
—Philip Fracassi, author of Boys in the Valley
“If you’re a connoisseur of sci-fi horror, Ghost Station is what you’re looking for.”
—Reactor
“[A] slow-simmering creepfest...In this golden era of sci-fi horror, Barnes leads the charge with her thoughtfully crafted characters, top-notch pacing and an ever-present sense of dread.”
—BookPage
“A hostile planet, mysterious alien ruins, and a distrustful crew of traumatized people—it’s a potent combination that makes for a tense, gripping, and delightfully creepy thriller.”
—Kali Wallace, author of Dead Space
“Barnes leads us step by step up a mounting staircase of dread, through horrors both real and suggestive.”
—David Wellington, author of Paradise-1
“Fans of exploration horror will go wild for this creepy, pacey, and captivating novel…. Ghost Station will infect you.”
—Ally Wilkes, author of All the White Spaces
"The best space horror since Alien.”
—Gretchen McNeil, author of Ten and #murdertrending
Praise for Dead Silence
A Best Book of 2022 by the New York Public Library • One of the Best SFF Books of 2022 (Gizmodo) • One of the Best SF Mysteries of 2022 (CrimeReads) • A GoodReads Choice Award finalist for Best Science Fiction!
01/01/2024
Ophelia is a psychiatrist in the year 2199, specializing in treating space explorers who suffer from ERS, a disease that presents itself in violence—most notably, a mass killing of 29 people. She joins a mission to claim a planet that held sentient life in the past to study the crew who are mourning the mysterious loss of a crew member on their last trip. They are holding on to their secrets tightly, but Ophelia is an expert at keeping secrets herself. The horrors of the isolation and loneliness of space travel are enhanced by Barnes's writing, as she only allows readers to see Ophelia's unreliable point of view and utilizes slow-burn pacing to perfection, expertly building the world and relentlessly intensifying the dread. Barnes simultaneously slips in small doses of terror that get and stay under readers' skin, until the entire narrative explodes and holds them entranced for its final act. VERDICT Barnes (Dead Silence) is quickly cementing herself as the go-to author in space horror. This will appeal to fans of sci-fi/horror hybrids that are heavy on the planetary-exploration details, such as David Wellington's Paradise-1, and also readers who enjoy the psychologically intense polar horror of Ally Wilkes.
Zura Johnson's smooth voice and careful, meticulous pacing build suspense as a small space crew investigates an abandoned planet while struggling to hold on to their sanity. Isolation in space has brutal, sometimes murderous, consequences, and psychologist Dr. Ophelia Bray will do anything to help her crew. But they reject her help, suspicious about her presence due to her family legacy, and show more interest in the previous failed attempt at colonizing the planet. Johnson smoothly differentiates male and female characters, emotionally connecting with each crew member and injecting a vivid personality. Narrating Ophelia's thoughts, her voice gently wavers as she ponders the crew's behavior while the horrors unfold around them. A.K.R. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine