The Scourge Between Stars

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With a setup like that, it’s hard to believe this book didn’t strike the right chord, but not only did I struggle to engage with the story, there were parts that I found tedious and frustrating. Many of the issues stemmed from the length of the novella—namely, I felt it was too short to truly explore any of its elements in depth. First of all, the reader is thrown headfirst into a situation about which they know very little; all we know is that the colony at a planet called Proxima b failed and that the fleet has been limping along home for quite some time yet nobody in the story appears to be reacting convincingly to what has transpired. Human beings can exhibit a wide range of reactions to a desperate situation, but the attitude on the Calypso feels oddly indifferent considering their captain has not been seen or heard from in more than a week. The World Building is minimal in the story. While much world building is usually based on the physical world, this world building focused on the history of the ship and mankind in general. This sets the stage for a grim mood that helped play to the story’s horror theme. All-in-all the story is definitely a character driven story with well enough build world that can be found believable for the reader.

This was a really fun sci-fi horror. Reminiscent of the Alien franchise--and, to be honest, if you've seen any of those movies you kinda know how it goes--Ness Brown utilizes some of the typical tropes of sci-fi horror, but it in no way bores you. The Scourge Between Stars is short, sweet (well, bloody), and to the point. But in her dreams she had always emerged from the Calypso after her father and mother, with her sister beside her. No matter the promise this signal held, that dream would never come true. She was painfully reminded of that by the eerie sound floating out of Watson’s familiar face, a face stolen from the grave. Speaking as someone who is already deep in Alien/Salvation Day territory, this book was everything I hoped it would be. I appreciated the no-nonsense pacing that didn't drag out for no reason what would be an immediate, crisis situation. The writing style was mostly matter-of-fact, but not without lyrical shine at times. It managed to be gritty and dark without crossing the line into exploiting the grief and depression felt by its characters.When the engagements first started, the engineers had hypothesized that the fleet had encountered some kind of interstellar energy fluid, though their forebears hadn’t reported anything of the kind. As the engagements got worse, conservative explanations were replaced with the harrowing realization that they might not be the only ones roaming the void. I can only speculate,” Otto said, kneading Watson’s unyielding shoulders excitedly. “But this might be the way forward.” While the ending is a little hmmm and reminds me a bit of An Unkindness of Ghosts (vaguely), the beginning and middle parts are straight up out of a horror movie and I LOVED IT. Otto’s lips pursed at the interruption. “Watson is the most advanced post-zettascale system ever constructed.” He didn’t have the decency, as its creator, to blush as he said so. “It’s about as difficult for her to ingest the data as it is for you and me to take a biscuit with our coffee.” I'm here to report ship and mission status.' She looked as stupid yelling outside the bulkhead now as she had the first twenty times."

I thought the scenes involving the alien monster were so well done. Brown creates tension right from the beginning, starting with Watson’s creepy messages that don’t make much sense at first, but become chilling in hindsight. There’s definitely some Alien in these sections—the dark corridors of the ship, a terrifying scratching noise coming from behind the bulkhead walls, and of course, the sudden appearance of what’s been hiding from the crew and some very tense chase scenes. Brown uses tried and true space tropes to tell their story, and they worked. If Ness Brown ever writes a sequel or an additional book in this universe, I will definitely be buying it. I cannot say enough positive things about The Scourge Between Stars! I had such a good time reading it. 🙂 If Otto was right, then Watson had just discovered their first confirmation of something else out there in the space between the stars, perhaps the very thing that took the Calypso between its teeth at random and shook. Their systems hadn't been powerful enough to detect anything during engagements, until now. If they could finally sense them, they could survive them." Something about it made her gooseflesh turn into an outright chill. With astrophysical and instrumental sources ruled out, there were only a few things it could be. Carry on then,” she snapped. Otto jumped at her tone, but she wasn’t looking at him—she was looking at Watson, who tilted its head at her curiously. Unable to stomach its docility anymore, she turned on her heel and stalked out of the office.I absolutely loved this little novella. It's the perfect amount of suspenseful and horrifying. I'm definitely going to be purchasing a physical copy when it comes out in April.

This novella has everything I want in a sci-fi horror: lots of action, excellent character arcs, and a solid resolution.” — Buzzfeed There were literally times when I gasped out loud, and wished I could read it with my hands over my eyes.

Tense, gory, and genuinely creepy…. Brown handles the astronomy and exobiology equally as competently as the interpersonal dynamics and trauma. The result is a sci-fi horror mash-up that holds its own with the classics of the genre.”— Publishers Weekly Now... I am not a stem girlie, but surprisingly, Ness Brown did a fantastic job utilizing engineer and scientific language without overwhelming me. I wouldn't have initially expected this story to be a debut because it has a strong overarching plot with great spaceship world building. You can tell that Ness is a scientist purely from her writing style because she's very direct. The writing doesn't have any lyrical prose because she's describing the scenes as concisely as possible and then jumping into what's next for the characters. This type of writing style, in my opinion, is less common because people like to create lush descriptions of the scenes, so Ness was refreshing in that she doesn't mess around with her writing. Moreover, this writing style led the story to be fast paced with constant action around nearly every corner and sometimes... even within the walls. It's books like this that remind me why I love space horror so damn much. This was an excellent debut novella from author Ness Brown--who, by the way, studied astrophysics as a graduate student and was actually an astronomy instructor! (Badass!) I really enjoyed my time listening to this story. The SF-writing was really well done. It felt fluid and engaging the whole way through.