The Scourge Between Stars starts off feeling a bit like a haunted house story - there's inexplicable noises coming from within the walls, things malfunction seemingly without cause, panels explode, etc. It's an effective opening that primes us for Brown's ultimate reveal, even if that reveal isn't particularly surprising, shifting gears from haunted house to violent creature feature. It's very much an Alien clone (in fact, Jonathan Barkan opines that Alien is the perfect haunted house movie in his piece for Bloody Disgusting. If you're going to copy somebody's template, you may as well copy from the best, right?), but Brown puts in just enough of their own touches to make the story feel more like pastiche than pure derivative. Sadly, Brown's few attempts to make the story their own aren't quite enough to salvage the whole enterprise. NESS BROWN is a speculative fiction author by day and astrophysicist by night. They are a proud New Mexican living in New York City (and missing green chile) with their husband and two cats, Faust and Mephi. They are currently studying graduate astrophysics after several years of teaching astronomy and encouraging students to wonder about worlds beyond our own. The Scourge Between Stars is their debut. 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. That was absurd, since infrared sensors in the captain’s bunk would’ve alerted her already. But it was a stain she couldn’t wash from her mind. She didn’t laugh. “What’s so secretive that you couldn’t tell everyone earlier?” They could have used some good news at the briefing, which was otherwise spent discussing how close the Calypso was to collapse.

Just once,” Otto admitted. “That’s all I had time for after the briefing. That’s why I had Watson escort you here.” The static buzzed in her ear again, but this time it fizzled into clarity. The last fragment of the message came out loud and clear. He’d explained it to her before—the decades that the fleet had spent on Proxima b, exposed even at the terminator to the host star’s radiation tantrums, had corroded a number of systems and machines. 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.Pixieltd on Reading The Wheel of Time: Taim Tells Lies and Rand Shares His Plan in Winter’s Heart (Part 3) 6 hours ago What I did need details on, partially because it seemed the set-up for the reason the protagonist is captain and partly because it seems to play a role in her psychological state, is why a crew would allow their captain to isolate during a time of crisis. It didn't make sense to me on any level and very much had the feeling of being saved for Later Dramatic Reveal. I trust you understand the magnitude of this moment,” Otto said, closing Watson’s mouth and cutting off the transmission.

I can only speculate,” Otto said, kneading Watson’s unyielding shoulders excitedly. “But this might be the way forward.” The nitty-gritty: The Scourge Between Stars had plenty of thrilling action, but the story itself was too big for the short format.

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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. 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. 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’m not a huge sci-fi/alien reader (unless the aliens are the love interests but that’s something entirely different and none-of-yer-business, lol) but I do like a dark and terrifying hell in space story sometimes. But I think I’ve finally come to the realization that I prefer the Event Horizon bleak types better than the straight-up sci-fi types so keep that in mind when you see these three stars. Ness Brown’s The Scourge Between Stars, a tense, claustrophobic sci-fi/horror blend in the vein of Alien and Event Horizon, will be published by Nightfire in April 2023! My main criticism is that the plot wasn’t that original and the ending felt very abrupt and wrapped up too neatly. It was also hard to connect with any of the side characters since the book was so short, so when deaths started happening there wasn’t much of an emotional impact for me. She looked as stupid yelling outside the bulkhead now as she had the first twenty times. “We voted to decelerate again today. Repairs are ahead of schedule, but we can barely take another hit.” She recited the items from the briefing at the wall. “I vetoed the delivery of extra resources to Orion and Cygnus Wards. There will be more demonstrations, but our ration levels are already critical.” After a pause, she shared what had happened in Data. “Otto may have figured out a way to avoid the engagements.” Thank you to the publisher, Tor Nightfire and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review.

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It has a good heart: an interim female captain trying to find her footing, a potential romantic interest, the sense of scrappy, desperate humanity going to try and overcome the odds through science, technology and grit. With all the elements that were eventually brought into the story (spoilery thematic stuff family trauma, failed colony, missing fleet mystery, robots/AI, finite resources, insurrection, romance ), it might have been a bit too much for a novella. Generation ships have been a popular science fiction trope for a long time, but would you really want to live on one? To spend your entire life in the confines of a single vessel, never knowing anyone outside your crew? Never knowing if your descendants will make it to your ultimate destination, let alone establish a successful and thriving colony? A perfect scare to swallow up in one sitting.” —Chloe Gong, #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights The Scourge Between Starshad so much potential, but unfortunately it ended up being way too ambitious for its length. Still, Ness Brown’s writing is really good, and despite my reservations about this book, I’d love to see what they come up with next. 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.