ARC Review: Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes

Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes is a thrilling and intense science fiction horror novel. Ghost Station is the second novel from S.A. Barnes whose first was Dead Silence. I liked Dead Silence the book had a lot of great moments and promises, Ghost Station I loved it took everything I liked from Dead Silence the intensity, the plot twists, the slight humor, and the horror and turned it up while cutting out most of what I disliked out. Ghost Station was a cross between the movie Life and Helix the SYFY network TV show (more people should watch this show it is fantastic). The pace of this book moves a little slow at the beginning, but when the horror starts at 40% the book is pretty nonstop. I liked the mystery aspect of the story what is happening are they experiencing ERS (space madness) or something else? The book has a lot of twists and turns, no earth-shattering ones but a lot of fun character reveals that lead to twists. There’s a minimal amount of characters so you get to know them pretty well I liked Suresh, the jokester, the best. Ophelia the main character took a while to warm up to she really is the worst person to be a psychiatrist. This book makes use of the trapped setting making the reader feel the claustrophobia. The ending was very satisfying and had a good twist with it. I read this advanced reader’s copy for free thanks to Netgalley and Tor Nightfire. Ghost Station will be published on April 9, 2024.

Plot Summary: Ophelia is a fill-in psychiatrist for a space mission to explore an abandoned planet that another corporation sold the rights to. Ophelia is filling in because the last crew member Ava died on mission. Ophelia has to be the new crew member, the outsider, and get the crew to talk about themselves. She has developed a new sleep study where a device puts you in a place where you’re comfortable like your old childhood bedroom. The sleep device has problems as some start sleepwalking and seeing ghosts. Ophelia would like to think the crew is going through ERS space madness, but she starts hearing and seeing ghosts. The mission is to study this newly abandoned planet, but the crew starts finding evidence that it wasn’t abandoned and that maybe the first crew never left. This is intense science fiction horror at its best.

What I Liked: The intensity of the novel is throughout. You can feel an unnerving presence lurking in the shadows. I liked how all the characters had very different voices, I never lost who was talking or being talked to. I liked the ending and how edge-of-your-seat it was. The novel did a great job of providing the flashbacks to make you feel like you were there. I thought what was haunting the crew members was interesting and terrifying. The mystery of what happened to the crew before them was really interesting.

What I Disliked: Ophelia was a horrible psychiatrist she had more secrets than anyone, and just kept making the dumbest choices not to help anyone’s psyche. ERS, space madness, was a big thing in Dead Silence I was a little annoyed that it was a thing in this book, in the end, this was a way different book than Dead Silence but I was worried it was going to be the same story in a different setting. ERS at the beginning was brought up so much I was like is this connected to Dead Silence but it was not.

Recommendations: Ghost Station is a great science fiction horror novel that I think you need to check out. It is atmospheric horror at its best, you feel the doom of being trapped where you can’t trust the people you are staying with. I like this novel over Dead Silence, which I rated 3 stars and saw a lot of potential. This novel has that potential and it was great to read.

Rating: I rated Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes 4.3 out of 5 stars. I look forward to reading more S.A. Barnes in the future.