Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes

TL;DR: S.A. Barnes hits that sweet spot of horror where the gore is high, but it’s not SUPER scary – because I’m a wimp. I enjoyed this immensely.
Source: NetGalley – thank you, thank you!

Plot: A bit of a well known trope but in a Science Fiction setting, this worked really well for me. Snowed in and trapped on an abandoned planet.
Characters: Outside of our main PoV they weren’t the most complicated but they filled the needed roles for the story.
Setting: Creepy and dark. I really felt this, and it really enhanced the story.
Horror: My only big complaint about the horror is I wish we had a better idea of how it resolved at the very, very end. But I loved the specific… let’s say problem that this presented our characters. Super creepy and unsettling.

Thoughts:

I was a big fan of S.A. Barnes’s book last year, Dead Silence. This year Ghost Station hits that same sweet spot for me. In this one we follow a psychiatrist as she departs on research mission with a team that’s recently lost a member. She struggles both with her identity and the dynamics of the team as they’re trapped within a station that’s empty and haunted by something or someone.

This is a fairly introspective novel at first. Ophelia spends a lot of time waxing melodramatic about her family, her mistakes, etc but once past that her story is actually very interesting. Her father was a mass murderer, famous and notorious for his murders. While her mother is part of one of the richest, ruling company families in the galaxy. She has grisly memories of the massacre perpetrated by her father, and she fights that ghost while everyone else sees nothing more than a spoiled rich girl.

The story does seem a big hung up on that inner conflict and turmoil but in the later half I truly enjoyed the insidious and creepy horror of the novel. It’s gory and gross, and just the right amount of creepy for me. There is a lot of ignoring obvious red flags but it still managed to surprise and spook me.

Overall another solid win for me with Ghost Station from S.A. Barnes. If you like Sci-fi horror I do think she’s an author to try.

4 out of 5 creepy wandering shoes